Off-Season is a Swiss-French co-production on MHz Choice about a Swiss detective, Captain Sterenn Peiry (Marina Hands) who is sent to a fading ski resort town Les Cimes to solve a murder. The body was bound and gagged in the same way as a cold case from the French side of the border, so French Captain Lyes Bouaouni (Sofiane Zermani) arrives to work with the Swiss authorities. (Note that this is NOT a remake of The Bridge.) Sterenn’s life is complicated by the fact that her 18-year-old son Jérémy (Cyril Metzger) hit and killed his girlfriend with Sterenn’s car on his last night in town. To cover his crime, Sterenn makes some questionable decisions, but Lyes is on to her. Meanwhile, a serial killer is bad news for Félicie Glassey (Anna Pieri), who is trying to build a fancy new hotel complex in the ailing town.
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Sterenn
Sterenn has had a few rough years. Three years earlier, her daughter, who was Jéremy’s twin, was killed in an avalanche in Les Cimes. Sterenn fell down a dark hole of alcoholism, but has since pulled out of it. So, when there is a murder in Les Cimes, her boss sends her to investigate, although not without trepidation. Sterenn stays at the family cabin, where Jéremy lives while working for the ski resort. At the end-of-the-season party on Jéremy’s last night in town, he discovers that his girlfriend, Melinda (Nastassia Tanner), is moving to Brazil instead of accompanying him to Geneva. The next morning, Sterenn finds Melinda’s dead body in the back seat of her car. Jéremy claims it was an accident, and that he was driving drunk, which, when you add vehicular homicide in, carries a 15-year jail term in Switzerland. Determined not to lose another child, Sterenn says she will handle it. Her ill-conceived solution is to dispose of Melinda’s body in the same way as the serial killer’s other two victims, so she looks like his third victim.
Read our review of Wilder, a Swiss crime drama, here.
Who Killed Clémence?
Clémence Fontaine was the victim found on the Swiss side of the border. She was the photographer for the outdated resort that has been run for generations by the Glassey family. Félicie Glassey is currently building a deluxe new hotel resort, and she was being blackmailed by Clémence. But the way the bodies are disposed of seems much too arduous for Félicie (although not Sterenn!), and also, she had already paid Clémence off. Could it be the husband, Adrien Fontaine (Antonio Troilo)? Turns out he and Clémence’s marriage wasn’t as stable as assumed. The victim on the French side of the border was a rescue helicopter pilot, which doesn’t fit the Félicie-as-killer narrative. Sterenn and Lyes are trying to find a connection between the victims when Melinda’s body surfaces. Lyes can’t shake the feeling that something is hinky about her death, and he begins to do some secret investigating.
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Our Take on Off-Season
As you can tell by the summary above, Off-Season feels familiar. The most unique element is the compromising decision that Sterenn makes to cover her son’s crime by mimicking a serial killer. But Off-Season is still worth a watch. It’s solidly written and the cinematography is gorgeous, with its sweeping vistas of the alps. The fact that it’s the end of the ski season gives the town a forlorn feel that adds to the foreboding atmosphere. The Sterenn character is a decent lead, but the Lyes character feels like a plot device more than a person. The writers try to create drama by having him neglect his extremely pregnant wife due to his obsessive need to solve the case (including Melinda’s murder), but it’s not that interesting. Nevertheless, I binged Off-Season, mostly because of the cliffhangers at the end of each episode, and although I found some of plot points silly, I enjoyed the series.
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