“… series not to be missed” - El Figaro
“Tomer Sisley is flawless [as an] intriguing and wounded dandy” - Paris Match
One of the 10 highest-rated dramas in France in 2018 – four of its episodes were seen by at least six million viewers each on TF1, BALTHAZAR series 1 will stream exclusively in the U.S. on Acorn TV on Monday, November 25, in a binge premiere of all six episodes. Compared favorably to such shows as Castle, The Mentalist and Bones —this acclaimed series stars popular actor, director and comic Tomer Sisley (Messiah, The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch) as Raphaël Balthazar, a handsome, intelligent and quick-witted forensic pathologist in Paris who can make the dead speak like no one else to help solve investigations of violent murders, but is also irreverent, mischievous and lives his life in firm defiance of norms and conventions. This presents a major challenge for new, no-nonsense police commander Hélène Bach (Hélène de Fougerolles, Le Secret d’Elise, VA Savoir), who must collaborate with him on these complicated cases. Called a “glorious streaming service… an essential must-have” (The Hollywood Reporter), AMC Networks’ Acorn TV is North America’s most popular streamer focused on British and international television.
On the job, Balthazar is very confident; his conclusions are often accurate to fill in gaps as much as possible about the victims, their lifestyles and their deaths, drawing from his top-notch skills and latest technology to help uncover evidence that police missed on the crime scene. He becomes so personally invested in the victims’ back stories that he speaks with them while conducting their autopsies at the morgue and they interact in return. He’s openly flirtatious with Bach. Yet he is vulnerable at home where he still mourns his late wife Lise (Pauline Cheviller, Le Secret d’Elise) 13 years later, where she was murdered. He draws comfort from intimate imagined conversations with her --whether he’s admiring her aunt’s courgette jam, she pokes fun at him for leaving graphic crime scene photos on the coffee table after his one-night stand stumbled on to them and ran off in fright or watching the Miss France competition show, which was a favorite pastime of theirs. Balthazar is now greatly conflicted over whether the man locked up for Lise’s murder was actually the perpetrator. Thanks to new clues, Balthazar is in hot pursuit to learn the true identity of her killer.
In the series premiere, Balthazar and Bach work together to solve the double homicide of a public prosecutor and his wife gunned down in their home, leaving behind their traumatized six-year-old daughter. In episode two, Balthazar arrives to a gruesome scene of a beaten man with his face partially missing: everyone claims the victim was well-liked, so why was he dumped miles from his home, and why didn’t he ever mention his years-old injuries to his wife? Also, Balthazar helps a woman in a movie theater who appears to have been stabbed, but after realizing the blood she’s covered in belongs to someone else, he races to find the other injured person. Learning that the two victims were engaged, Bach interviews their families, who claim the pair were very much in love, but evidence shows the woman was deeply depressed. Co-starring in the series is Yanig Samot (The French Kissers) as policeman Jerome Delgado.
BALTHAZAR premiered on December 6, 2018 in France and is a production of BEAUBOURG STORIES in co-production with France’s TF1 and international distributor ITV Studios Global Entertainment. BALTHAZAR Series 2 is scheduled to stream on Acorn TV in spring 2020.
U.S. Premiere: Monday, November 25, 2019 Episodes: 6 (one-hour each, English subtitles)
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AMC Networks’ Acorn TV is North America’s largest streaming service specializing in British and international television with over 1 million paid subscribers in the U.S and Canada. Acorn TV adds exclusive new programs every week with a deep library of mysteries, dramas, and comedies with no set end dates or commercials. Facebook: OfficialAcornTV - Twitter @AcornTV
