The care the Belgians took in their production of Maigret was remarkable, when one looks at the copyright. This is a 21st century series that virtually transports the viewer back into the Fifth Republic, a bygone, magisterial age, to steal an excellent adjective from Dana Stevens, who gets paid to turn the lights on when the late Mr. Hoffman juiced himself into the send up of L Ron Hubbard. Ms Stevens found the right word for the era, magisterial-- in the US, it lasted from 52 to 65.
Georges Simenon may be as slithery as an eel to pin down, worth pursuing in his original language, but Bruno Cremer was the best Maigret, and Maigret is the best detection procedural on the face of the earth as adapted for a teleplay. The British can do conspiracy to make the roots of your hair stand on end, with riveting plots, but France simply crucifies when it comes to fidelity, understanding that excellence is derived through attention to detail, the definition of poise to the point of actually being duped into time travel. Maigret is at once an antithesis to the disruptions caused by crippling the body, and at the same time, nearly a brilliant ornamentation of the fusionary aspects between bipedal afterthought and the psychosis of damage hidden in the dark, whether I can chisel an article out of this raw and cooked striving or not, for all his reticence about treating his Parkinson's, Michael Kinsley has vanished from the scene. Whimsy, which carries the voice of his few columns I've seen since he appeared on Charlie Rose trying to control his involuntary spasms, doesn't compensate for his loss of prestige, but he goes down quietly, a gentleman, recognized as a celebrity writer better than most, an astute, perceptive analyst at his peak, none of us dwell on his circumstances, except as a footnote. Slate is a loose jointed progeny, not of Wapo, actually, but of the Time Magazine essayist, which cannot be reproduced on a web page.
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