Ah, the age-old cop show cliche of the odd couple. You know the type – one plays by the rules, whilst the other is a rebel. Or one is a grizzled old-timer and the other is a fresh-faced newbie. Opposites who don’t attract – well, at least not initially, until they finally reluctantly realise each other’s abilities and become buddies.
If you want to avoid all spoilers, stop reading this article now.
That’s what we have here with this entertaining, if generic, French comedy-crime show. The two main characters are Panda and Lola, who sound more like cartoon characters on CBeebies than a crime fighting duo. Panda (Julien Doré) is a retired cop turned beach-bum, who runs a bar and dresses in outrageous Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops. Lola (Ophélia Kolb) is a young, up-tight cop, who meets Panda when a suspect she’s chasing hides in his establishment.
Lola ends up arresting Panda for harbouring the suspect and takes him back to the station – where her boss (who was also Panda’s old boss) points out who he is. Turns out, Panda just disappeared, and no-one bothered to empty his locker or – it appears – stop his salary. This all stretches the believability a bit, but we’ll let it slide as it is a comedy.
Despite having abandoned police-work (for reasons that are only hinted at in the very final scene of the opening episode) Panda’s interest is piqued when he realises that the suspect arrested at his bar was almost certainly innocent of the crime – the murder of a young woman on a yacht. He starts investigating himself, only to be discovered by Lola at the crime scene, lying on the very bed where the woman was killed. But despite this rocky start to their relationship, they end up partnering up and – surprise, surprise – solving the crime between them.
Despite Panda being a quite ridiculous character, this is actually quite a fun show. There’s a little sexual tension between the buff, shaggy-haired and laid-back Panda and the feisty, by-the-book and beautiful Lola. Panda has a Holmes or Poirot-like ability to see through people and situations, somehow managing to come up with solutions to the mystery with the minimum of effort and scant regard for procedure. Whereas Lola is the grafter – doing things the right way, but without his natural crime-solving ability.
Each episode is a different storyline, so you can dip in and out as you choose – although there’s clearly a backstory about Panda’s police history that will no doubt unfold gradually.
Not exactly ground-breaking, but a pleasant distraction.
Walter Presents: ‘Panda' is available to stream on C4 Streaming with new episodes released weekly during May.
