The Returned confirms that the French are ready to challenge the Scandinavians as the powerhouse of new TV drama
It's four years since a coach taking local teenagers on a school trip plunged down a French mountain, killing several students. But, just as final plans for a much-debated memorial are being passed round the weekly bereavement support group, the children start to come home, acting as if nothing has happened, followed by the ghosts (presumably) of others who died horribly in the region.
The Returned, an eight-part French TV drama, is based on a 2004 movie called Les Revenants, but now inevitably seems also to draw on the trend for populist-metaphysical TV dramas, which generally turn out to be set in purgatory, including Life On Mars/Ashes To Ashes in the UK and Lost in the US. It shares with the latter the use of flashbacks to establish what happened to the characters before they became whatever they are now. The ABC network is remaking The Returned, but the French original confirms, after Spiral, the nation's challenge to Scandinavia as the new powerhouse of small-screen drama.
The Returned satisfyingly combines a variety of genres, most obviously including zombie horror but also crime drama, because a serial killer seems to be at loose in the mourning community, raising the question of whether those who are already dead can be killed or, indeed, kill. However, the series also explores deeper questions of grief and faith. When one terrified local comments that such resurrections are "unprecedented", another mutters, "Except once." But, while the believers in the town have apparently had their prayers answered, we suspect they will almost certainly conclude that they should have been careful what they prayed for.
These subtler undercurrents – and the murder investigation – prevent the show from becoming a standard yarn about the undead. And there are numerous sharp touches in writing, acting and direction. When one bereaved mother excitedly tells the support group that she is pregnant, a fleeting cutaway catches the pain on the face of an older woman who is denied that option of continuation. The "Is this really happening?" scenes between the mourning and the dead are also beautifully done, including a moment when a mother struggles not to favour her resurrected daughter over the living one.
There are perhaps moments when it gets a little… well, French, such as identical twin sisters who experience each other's orgasms, but otherwise this tense and thoughtful ghost and crime story – Channel 4's first foreign drama for 20 years – seems set to be this year's smart subtitled import.
• The Returned starts on Channel 4 in June.