Thursday, March 23, 2017

Hotel Beau Séjour Season 1 Netflix Series Pilot Review

Hotel Beau Séjour (2017-)
Season 1 - 10 episodes (2017) 
Watch Hotel Beau Séjour Season 1 on Netflix
Available in United States, Canada, Nordics, Australia, New Zealand, Poland

Created by: Nathalie Basteyns, Kaat Beels, Sanne Nuyens, Bert Van Dael
Starring:  Lynn Van Royen, Inge Paulussen, Jan Hammenecker
Rated: TV-14

Plot
In this Flemish language series, teenage Kato investigates her own mysterious death while caught in an afterlife limbo, unraveling a web of secrets in her seemingly tranquil village.

Verdict
The pilot was good. This is a dark mystery series with a twist. The main character is dead and investigating her own death while a handful of people can still see her.
The first episode hints at how Kato's world overlaps with the real world, yet still leaving a lot of questions. This looks like it might be just a regular winding mystery at it's core, but the second episode was disappointingly slow.
Watch it.

Review
The opening scene is great. A girl wakes up in Hotel Beau Séjour and discovers her own dead body in a bathtub her family begins to worry when their daughter isn't home in the morning. Kato makes it back home and realizes something is not right when her family can't see her. I thought it might be a lapse in logic when Kato slings papers across the room. The mother doesn't see, and in the next scene they are right back where they were originally, but Kato's world has a disconnect with the real world.
I wondered if it was a Ghost (1990) situation where apparitions can react with the physical world, but it's not that. Kato and the person in the same room experience a different reality.

While I thought the papers were a lapse, in a subsequent scene, Kato grabs a helmet and rides off on a motorcycle, the camera tracking her. The camera then backtracks. The bike and helmet are exactly where they were before she rode off.
I hope the show explains it, but often Kato interacts, or think she interacts with physical objects, but doesn't.  She can use a phone to call somebody, but they can't hear her. How this works is a mystery after two episodes. I wonder if it's an overlap of dimensions.
It turns out five people can see her, including her dad. Kato can manipulate aspects of the physical world, but only the people that see her can see her do that. It's a trip. Kato experiences her death through others, like her mom. She even attends her own funeral.

Kato's boyfriend is an early suspect, but I'm sure this series will have more than a few twists. I had to watch the second episode for more answers, but that episode was disappointing. There are no answers, and it doesn't do much, other than put the five people that can see Kato into one room. One of the cops can see her, and it seems he's covering up something. The second episode wasn't that great, but I'd like to keep watching for answers. If we don't get answers, this is going to be disappointing. It has the potential to be engrossing.

1 comment :

  1. In this original and unusual Flemish series (not only Hollywood has actors), a teenage girl comes back to life but can't remember what happened to her. She is confounded when her family can't see her but she can see them. She goes about her normal habits, including showering, eating and drinking, and even riding a Mopar, only to discover that her alcoholic father and even a boy she doesn't know, can see her. She then sets out to solve her own murder.
    This quirky, rare gem of scifi without the horror is really worth your time.

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