This is dark. And I don’t just mean metaphorically; but it’s literally dark, too. I honestly thought there was something wrong with the settings on my TV at times, because this had me squinting at the screen to see what was going on. Which is even more curious as this latest Walter Presents offering is from Spain – a country that’s usually so vibrant and colourful.
If you want to avoid all spoilers, stop reading this article now.
Set in a rain-sodden Valladolid, Inspector Sancho – who is about to be relocated to Madrid – is summoned to a murder scene where a young woman’s body has been found by a river. She has had her eyelids removed post-mortem, and in her mouth has been inserted a small tube. Inside the tube is a scroll of paper onto which has been typed a poem.
Suspicions initially fall on her abusive ex-partner, who has disappeared. But Sancho suspects it’s not a simple case of a bitter former boyfriend. So he enlists the help of the beautiful Martina (nice played by Manuela Vellés), a psycholinguist, to analyse the poem – and soon finds himself drawn to her.
This isn’t a whodunnit, because we meet the perpetrator of the crime very early in the opening episode. Augusto is a handsome peacock of a man, constantly admiring his image in the mirror and preening himself. He’s a typical narcissist who attends darkened nightclubs, chases women, does high-end drugs and fantasises about murder, violence and sex.
But he has another pursuit – that of an elderly woman he’s trying to trace. At this stage we don’t know who she is or why he’s employed a mysterious on-line investigator to find her.
This isn’t a bad show, but it’s got nothing – at least so far – to rise it about the rest in what is a crowded market. Sancho (Francisco Ortiz) is an engaging and likable character – and it’s nice to see more of who he really is outside of the police work, such as his relationship with his mum, who has early stages of dementia. And there are one or two nice production touches in way it’s filmed (despite my earlier comment about it being dark); but the script is clumsy, and I’m not entirely convinced by Augusto (Yon González). It’s all a bit cliched and ham-fisted – there’s little finesse. He’s like a comic-book villain and lacks subtlety. That’s no reflection on the actor, incidentally, who does a decent job with the character he’s been given.
Walter Presents: ‘Momento Mori' is available to as a full boxset now on C4 Streaming.
