(TV SERIES) Paris Has Fallen Season 1 - A Pretty Entertaining Action Thriller Series

In the website where I could check on new movies or series released in various streaming platforms, I saw the title of this series on Catchplay+ which intrigued me. After finding out more, I realized that it was indeed related to the movies with similar words in their title. So obviously I wanted to give it a try. I started watching 3 nights ago and finished it last night. All right then, I'll just get right with the series.

Brief Story Line

After a major terrorist attack in Paris, Vincent Taleb (Tewfik Jallab - Like a Prince, Oussekine TV series etc) a security protection for Minister of Defence and former Special Forces had to work together with an MI6 agent Zara Taylor (Ritu Arya - Red Notice, Humans TV series etc) to stop further terror. They were joined by other people in the Counter Terrorist unit led by Matis (Jérémie Covillault) who report directly to the French president Juliette Levesque (Emmanuelle Bercot - De grandes espérances, Mon Roi etc).

The leader of the terrorist was actually an ex French Foreign Legion soldier Jacob Pearce (Sean Harris - Mission: Impossible - Fall Out, The King etc) together with his group of mercenaries and an expert assassin Freja (Ana Ularu - Siberia, Tribes of Europa TV series etc). The multiple attacks took a toll in the personal life of Zara and her girlfriend Thea (Camille Rutherford - The Three Musketeers: Milady etc) as well as Vincent's relationship.

So what was the ultimate goal of Jacob and how would the story conclude? You could find out in this series.

End of Brief Story Line

As I said above, this series was related to the movies like Angel Has Fallen and its two predecessors. It was set in the same universe of the Has Fallen universe, although other than the title, there was not a single reference to those films. However, the action were still greatly done and not too far off compared to the movies. It was actually pretty awesome for a TV series. 

The series itself consisted of 8 episodes with standard 40+ minutes each where the first one already quite explosive and set the tone for the remaining episodes. I got to say that with the Counter Terorrist unit and the way there were hidden agendas and few surprises, reminded me a bit of one of my most favorite series 24. Of course it's not up to the same quality. After finishing this, I was quite satisfied with the way it concluded. There was only one small thing remained unresolved involving an independent party revealed in the last 2 episodes which could be the potential story if they want to renew it, but even if they do not, I am pretty content.

The lead cast Tewfik Jallab is unfamiliar to me though he seemed to be quite well known in France. I was of course familiar with Ritu Arya, Ana Ularu and Sean Harris but other than those, most of the cast were from France and unknown to me. Which was why I was a bit confused why Sean Harris was chosen to play his character as he is from England. I have no doubt about his quality and he was also praised for his performance here, however, I think casting a French actor would probably be more suitable. One of the things that bothered me was because Jacob always used English language in all his dialogues even when he was conversing with fellow French. Anyway, there were few other people in support capacity, but the ones who played major roles were those I mentioned above.

Btw, the name Gerard Butler was indeed stated in the series where he was credited as one of the producers. This series was jointly produced by StudioCanal, Urban Myth films and Millenium Media with G-Base who were the producers of Has Fallen franchise. I read that they were already considering making TV series set in the same universe in the past. So if this one is successful enough, who knows we might be seeing more series in other countries in the future and hopefully Mike Banning could appear in those. This series was created by Howard Overman (writer of Misfits series and creator of War of the World & The One TV series) and directed by Oded Ruskin & Hans Herbots.

Overall this is a pretty entertaining action thriller series that should satisfy fans of such genre. The action was violent with plenty of hand to hand combat and the killings were quite brutal. There was a part where I was a bit dissatisfied about the fact that the villains kept Vincent alive since it was rather uncharacteristic. Oh the finale fight was not really great either as it was less of a bang. Other than those, I still enjoyed the series. So if you are in the mood for some fun action set in the beautiful Paris (at least they only showed the lovely sceneries here), then you could give it a try. But if you want an intelligently done action thriller or hoping for 24 quality kind, then most likely you won't enjoy this. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars