Baron Noir

Baron Noir Season 2
French TV

Baron Noir’s subtitling really has gone to pot this season

7 February 2018 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Subtitling is a delicate art, as I’ve mentioned before. It takes time, skill and an appreciation of language – at least two languages, in fact.

Amazon is currently trying to keep pace with Canal+ (France)’s airing schedule for the second season of Baron Noir. Kudos to them for trying. Still, at two episodes a week, I’m wondering if that’s too much for whomever they’re got as a translator*.

It started out fine. But as I noted when discussing the third episode this morning, since then it’s all gone to pot. Watching episode four, I’m finding words are missing, there are mistranslations, tenses are wrong, expressions are used incorrectly and more. There are no attempts a lot of the time to render certain useful terms into English: it might take the casual viewer a little time to work out what FN and SP/PS (they’re used interchangeably in the subtitles) are, for example – they’re the National Front and the Socialist Party respectively.

A lot of the time, the subtitles simply don’t make sense.

You can see there that someone doesn’t know that depuis in French doesn’t work like for/since in English. That’s GCSE level that is.

Similarly, tenses go a bit wild here, for example.

I reckon at least 10% of the subtitles have mistakes and about a third of those mistakes render them incomprehensible. It’s a shame because this season is a right cracker, too.

Not that Roku seems to want to let me watch all of it:

Roku Baron Noir

Who needs episodes 3 and 4, hey? Go straight to 5! (We can spoiler that for you, too, BTW)

Right back to my web browser for the rest of episode 4…

*UPDATE: A quick perusal of the credits for seasons 1 and 2 reveals that the contract has gone from TitraFilm Paris, where one Holly Diener did the subtitling, to VDM, whose shonky home page should give you a further idea of how good their English is. Amazon – rehire TitraFilm and Holly!

Audrey Fleurot as Karlsson in Engrenages
US TV

What have you been watching? Including Happy!, Engrenages and Baron Noir

7 February 2018 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend anything you’ve been watching this week

I’m a little bit behind. Sorry. Watching all of Altered Carbon (Netflix) for Boxset Monday, coupled with the double-episode French demands of Engrenages (Spiral) and Baron Noir meant that although I’ve managed third-episode verdicts of Counterpart (US: Starz) and Black Lightning (US: The CW; UK: Netflix), I’ve not yet had the chance to see the first eps of A.P. Bio (US: NBC) or Let’s Get Physical (US: Pop). They’ll be coming later in the week, along with a gander at Squinters (Australia: ABC) and maybe even The New Legends of Monkey (Australia: ABC Me; UK: Netflix), although that’s really for kids. Still, Monkey Magic!

Still a lot of shows are now ending, which should make that job easier. Indeed, after the jump, I’ll be looking at the season finales of Engrenages (Spiral) and Happy!, as well as the penultimate episode of Star Trek: Discovery.

On top of that, I’ll be looking at the latest episodes of Black Lightning (yep, another one), Baron Noir (well, one of them, since at two episodes a week, I’m a bit behind…), The Magicians, SEAL Team and Will & Grace.

See you in a mo.

PS I saw two new movies in the whole of January. That’s not a lot, is it? So it might be time to have a Monthly Movies feature, rather than including it in WHYBW. What do you all think about that?

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Happy!, Engrenages and Baron Noir”

Volker Bruch as Gereon Rath in Babylon Berlin
US TV

What have you been watching? Including Babylon Berlin (season two), Counterpart and The Alienist

31 January 2018 Rob Buckley 15 Comments

It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend anything you’ve been watching this week

Gosh, it’s been a busy old week, hasn’t it? Elsewhere, I’ve posted third- and fourth-episode verdicts on The Resident (US: Fox; UK: Universal Channel), Corporate (US: Comedy Central) and Burden of Truth (Canada: CBC), and that’s on top of reviewing the first episode of The Alienist (US: TNT; UK: Netflix).

Some time in the next few days I’ll be taking a gander at Let’s Get Physical (US: Pop), and passing a third-episode verdict on Black Lightning (US: The CW; UK: Netflix). I’m also knuckling down to try to watch all of Netflix’s Altered Carbon in time for a Boxset Monday. Let’s see how that goes.

But today, it’s time to look at the regulars. SEAL Team and Will & Grace are on a break right now, but Engrenages (Spiral), Happy!, The Magicians and Star Trek: Discovery will all be getting my considered opinions, as will The Brave and Great News season finales (which will probably be their series finales, to be honest).

On top of that, Counterpart has now started in earnest, there’s a new episode of The Alienist and Amazon’s started dishing out two episodes of season two of Baron Noir at time (although I’ve not had time to watch today’s two new episodes, just the first two). And although it didn’t quite merit a full Boxset Monday treatment, I did watch all of season two of Babylon Berlin this week.

That’s all after the jump – see you in a mo.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Babylon Berlin (season two), Counterpart and The Alienist”

Baron Noir Season 2
Airdates

When’s that show you mentioned starting, TMINE? Including The Alienist, Baron Noir, Damnation, Maltese, Everything Sucks! and Seven Seconds

26 January 2018 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Every Friday, TMINE lets you know when the latest global TV shows will air in the UK

Just one new acquisition this week – The Alienist (US: TNT; UK: Netflix) – of which I’ve just reviewed the first episode. That’ll be available in its totality on Netflix here in the UK from April 19.

There’s also been a secret acquisition by Amazon of season 2 of Baron Noir (France: Canal+). Why do I say secret? Because firstly it didn’t tell anyone and secondly it’s deploying a secret new airing strategy. What is this secret new strategy? Well, you know the way it makes available the latest episode of a new US TV show the day after it airs in the US? Same thing here, even though it’s French. In fact, the first two episodes are already available.

Okay, so not that secret really.

Premiere dates

Damnation

Damnation (US: USA; UK: Netflix)
Premiere date:  Thursday, February 1st

Billed as “as an epic saga of the secret history of the 1930s American heartland, chronicling the mythic conflict and bloody struggle between big money and the downtrodden, God and greed, charlatans and prophets,” Damnation sees firebrand faux preacher Killian Scott and his smarter, more literate wife Sarah Jones stirring up a proletariat uprising against capitalism. Trouble is, professional strike-breaker Logan Marshall-Green is on his tail, and he’s willing to do what it takes to stop the revolution before it starts.

An intriguing, failed experiment and a window onto a generally unobserved time and place that still has a lot going for it in many areas. But it got cancelled this week so season 1’s your lot.

Episode reviews: 1

Inspector Falke

Tatort (The Mind of a Murderer/Inspector Falke) (Germany: Das Erste; UK: All4)
Premiere date: Friday, February 2nd

As I mentioned earlier this week, Germany’s long-running Tatort krimi series is actually made up of several different strands supplied by different parts of Germany. Walter Presents has already given us two of these strands as Cenk Batu (‘Team Hamburg’ from 2008 to 2012) and Nick’s Law (‘Team Hamburg’ from 2013 to 2016), but up next are The Mind of a Murderer (‘Team Dortmund’) and Inspector Falke (the new ‘Team Hamburg’).

Maltese

Maltese: Il romanzo del commissario (Maltese: The Mafia Detective) (Italy: RAI; UK: Channel 4)
Premiere date: Sunday, February 4th, 10pm

Set in the 70s, Maltese sees police detective Kim Rossi Stuart return to Sicily for the wedding of a childhood friend and gets caught up in a murder case which sees him waging war against the mafia in a desperate effort to unravel the truth. Rike Schmid co-stars.

Everything Sucks!

Everything Sucks! (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, February 16th

Set in Boring, Oregon (that’s a real place, BTW) in 1996, Everything Sucks! is a coming of age story that revolves around the High School’s A/V Club and Drama Club – two groups of nerdy-edgy outsiders, who join forces to make a movie.

Seven Seconds

Seven Seconds (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, February 23rd

After a white cop accidentally hits and critically injures a black teenager, a northeastern US city explodes with racial tensions, an attempted cover-up and its aftermath, and the trial of the century.

Stars Regina King, who seems to be the queen of anthology series these days.

Baron Noir
French TV

Baron Noir returns for season 2 next week in France

17 January 2018 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Baron Noir was one of TMINE’s favourite shows of 2016, a marvellous French political drama that somehow managed to predict and combine the Corbyn Labour leadership competition and Brexit then relocate them to France and actually inject them with some charisma.

Now it’s back, ready to regale us with a second season – at least in France. Here’s the rubric (with spoilers for season 1, obvs):

Caught between the extreme right and religious fanaticism, to ‘save the Republic’ Amélie Dorendeu, candidate for the presidential election, decides to follow the risky strategy of ‘Baron Noir’ Philippe Rickwaert, who’s just out of prison and forced to be her secret counsellor pending his trial.

But the country’s divisions are creating an unprecedented institutional crisis. Will Rickwaert’s tactical genius succeed in reconciling the irreconcilable? Will Amélie become the woman of state that he had dreamed or his worst enemy – the one who knows everything about him and more? Will the Baron Noir assume his own destiny and reveal his true nature?

There’s a great big trailer over on the Canal+ web site, along with clips and featurettes, but here’s a few smaller trailers that Canal+ has deigned to put on YouTube.