Review: Cardinal (Series 1)
DVD: Cardinal (Series 1) (2017)
John Cardinal (Billy Campbell) is a demoted police officer working in the cold reaches of Algonquin Bay in Canada. Removed from the homicide squad due to chief Dyson’s (Kristen Thomson) belief that he was going overboard in his investigation of a missing First Nations girl. Vindicated when the girl’s body finally turns up, he is reassigned to the case with new partner Lise Delorme (Karine Vanasse), little does Cardinal know is that Delorme has been assigned to investigate him, as part of a federal police corruption probe which has identified Cardinal as possibly collaborating with a local drug dealer who has repeatedly managed to elude arrest.
Nordic Noir is extremely popular in Britain and apparently Cardinal was shown on BBC 3 recently. There have been so many Noirβs and also Italian based crime shows on BBC3 that I admit I gave up on them, so missed Cardinal on the TV.
I wasnβt looking forward to spending 6 hours watching this series for review, reviewing television series can be rather gruelling, especially if you know nothing about them. However, they can also be a pleasure and Iβm very pleased to say Cardinal IS a cracking show.
All cop orientated shows have a βtroubledβ cop as the central character and I suppose Cardinal isnβt that different, he may, or may not be crooked, and he is pretty dour (though Billy Campbell is rather easy on the eye) and distant, and of course he has a problem wife, but this series is different as the story itself twists and turns, despite us knowing nearly straight away who the killer is, and there are moments of real horror in it. Itβs violent. The camera doesnβt look away. It also involves the murder of under 18βs which could be a tough watch for some viewers.
I do tend to skip through TV series (only because they are sometimes 7 seasons long) but I did watch all of Cardinal, and enjoyed it immensely. Iβve just read its being renewed for another 2 seasons, so I will be looking forward to seeing the continued adventures of Cardinal!
Also, thanks to the kind people at Aim Publicity, we will be giving away Series 1 of Cardinal over on our Twitter account (@60MinutesWith) soon, so make sure to follow us and keep watching for yet another of our Twitter giveaways.
Cardinal will be released on 2nd October 2017 and you can buy it by clicking HERE. ALL money raised by purchasing from Amazon via our website is given back to our listeners and followers in upcoming competition prizes. The more people buy, the bigger our prizes!
Review by Tina (co-host of 60 Minutes With) from discs kindly supplied by Aim Publicity.