HomeTVWalter Presents: 'The Pleasure Principle' preview - the territory-spanning narrative gives the...

Walter Presents: ‘The Pleasure Principle’ preview – the territory-spanning narrative gives the show a spin of its own

Those of us of a certain vintage will see the title of this latest offering from Walter Presents and think of a Gary Numan album from 1979. Instead, this is an Eastern European crime drama set across three cities – Odessa in Ukraine, Prague in the Czech Republic and Warsaw in Poland.  There are some obvious comparisons to ‘The Team’ (Germany, Denmark and Belgium) and ‘The Bridge’ (Sweden and Denmark), given the multiple country setting, but in truth this isn’t in the same league as ‘The Bridge’.

If you want to avoid spoilers, stop reading this article now.

On a beach in Odessa, bathers spot an unmanned boat bobbing about on the water. When two members of the public swim out to it, they’re shocked to discover it houses the body of a young woman with a missing arm, severed – post-mortem – just below the shoulder. Ukrainian police captain, Serhij Franco (Sergey Strelnikov), is brought in to investigate. He’s a rugged, good-looking but troubled detective with some dubious connections.

Walter Presents: The Pleasure Principle
Credit: Walter Presents

Meanwhile in Warsaw, the chain-smoking and sour-faced super-intendent Maria Sokolowska (Malgorzata Buczkowska) is called in when a courting couple have their vehicle rammed by a masked assailant. The attacker runs off, but when Maria opens the boot of the vehicle used in the attack, she discovers a woman’s severed arm. The rest of her, incidentally, turns up later – you will be relieved to know.

And finally, in a theatre in Prague, a stage prop reveals another severed arm. Enter near-retired detective Viktor Seifert (Karel Roden) to track down the remainder of the body. We see relatively little of Viktor, but no doubt his time will come in later episodes.

Over the ten episodes, the three detectives are drawn together as they realise the similarities between the crimes and their victims – is there a serial killer working across all the countries, or a team of killers working in partnership across borders?

Walter Presents: The Pleasure Principle
Credit: Walter Presents

The opening episode is quite hard to follow at times. The action shifts from one city to another and it’s often hard to tell what’s going on and how it all links together. Apart from the opening beach scene in Odessa, everywhere else is mainly painted in a grey and bleak hew. The droning soundtrack does little to lift the mood, and the main characters are rather dour and unsympathetic – Maria in particular.

But it does have plenty going for it – not least the fact that the storyline is intriguing. And the concept of having a territory-spanning narrative, whilst not entirely original, gives the show a spin of its own.

Probably because it’s set across a number of countries, the opening episode is a bit disjointed. But often the first episode is a scene-setter; and here you have three scenes to set, so you can forgive its fragmented nature. However, there’s sufficient intrigue to draw you in and make you curious how the different strands will fit together, and how the characters will interact and develop over the subsequent weeks.

Walter Presents: ‘The Pleasure Principle’ is available on All 4 as a full boxset from 28th May 2021.

Martin Howse
Martin Howse
Martin is a wannabe Viking who enjoys all things Nordic (literature, film, TV, rock music - and cinnamon buns!). Skål!

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