Take " The Shield" and amp it up by swearing more, having more violence, and way more sex, et voila! Well not quite. In Braquo the dialog has a male macho Black and White staccato. The action is fervid, and it's this that saves it, because the plot holes are massive. Bring disbelief into viewing it and it becomes comedy, so best thing is to amp up the Lizard brain and bring out the teenager or Trump voter that lurks inside. "How are they going to get out of this" buildups are followed by RUFKM plot twists dreamed up by writers that don't care about the real world of cause and effect. Tortured for days and voila nothing to show for it but some stitches, just to remind us of the torture, juiced to the max by electrical prods and voila able to recover in 5 minutes flat.

I missed the first 2 seasons, although I've since caught up thanks to Sky On Demand and I have to say that I've enjoyed this immensely. Of course it's full of huge improbabilities, but isn't that what TV drama is all about - it's not a documentary. There are many similarities to The Shield in fact you can quite easily match the main characters: Eddy = Vic; Theo = Shane; Walter = Ronnie and Roxane = Lem. To me, it's the Shield with a European feel. I liked Season 2 less than 1 and 3 and had thought that Season 3 was to be the last. However, having seen the final episode last night it seems clear that a 4th season is intended. Whether it materialises and when are different matters!Shame they killed off Theo as he was the loose cannon of the team and I agree with the reviewer who lamented the loss of Valerie Borg.

The first season of 'Braquo' is an entertaining watch, a fast-paced cop action drama that keeps you from asking too many questions by piling on the thrills and twists in rapid succession. Its plot is reminiscent of 'The Shield' while the execution reminded me more of '24', though it does not quite have the quality of either show. Nonetheless, it's definitely entertaining and thrilling. A very solid 7/10 in my book.The second season, however, is one to completely forget. It gets ridiculously hard to suspend your disbelief as the plot continues to dumb down and the characters get increasingly unbelievable. The complete 2nd season just feels beyond lacklustre, rushed and uninspired with plot holes bigger than all the dozen international criminal organisations featured in it combined. About a 3/10 at best. Lastly, I have no idea where the comparisons to 'The Wire' come from. 'Braquo' is nothing like the masterpiece that 'The Wire' is, so don't get fooled by that misguided comparison.

Plot: A team of corrupt French cops fight crime whilst trying to avoid being exposed by Internal Affairs.The first series is a wonderfully testosterone soaked affair as the police squad try to take down the criminal responsible for the death of their boss, only to find themselves hunted by an Infernal Affairs team. To hide their crimes they are forced into taking increasingly desperate measures, which usually only serve to make things worse. Trapped in a negative spiral, each episode is more tense than the last, and there is a real thrill in seeing whether they can get away with it all. The second series takes the just-about-believable sex and violence and amps it up to ludicrous levels with flame-throwers, science-fictional guns, and a massive conspiracy turning up. The (now disgraced) police team is forced to infiltrate a team of ex-French Special Forces who have stolen a shipment of gold which they want to sell on the black market to fund their revenge mission on the French bureaucrats who betrayed them. Expect lots on the seamy side of French government (which is most of it) and its less than salubrious foreign policy in its former colonies in Africa.This is a very French series. All the men are ferociously grizzled, and almost all the women beautiful. There is plentiful nudity and plenty of action too, with gun fights, heists and kidnappings most episodes - yet it never becomes outright titillation as it would in an American series. The characterisation is surprisingly good, with the criminals being especially memorable. It is also nice to see the French not holding back on just who actually commits crime. I suspect that the show is fairly divorced from the reality of French policing, and the second series is sometimes too silly to stomach comfortably, but with the surfeit of manly shows on British TV this has been a welcome change which became a firm guilty pleasure for me.