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Maigret Review: A Contemporary Paris Makes Simenon’s Detective Work

PBS MASTERPIECE moves Simenon’s detective to contemporary Paris. Its six-episode first season makes a persuasive case for modernization while keeping Maigret’s attention to people at its center.
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Maigret turns Georges Simenon’s celebrated detective into a contemporary Parisian police inspector, and its first season’s strongest idea is that modernization need not mean abandoning the character’s defining method: understanding people before judging them. The six episodes make a persuasive case for the adaptation, though “near-perfect” is best read as a verdict on its ambitions rather than a claim of critical consensus.

What kind of Maigret is this?

This PBS MASTERPIECE series adapts Simenon’s novels about Chief Inspector Jules Maigret, played by Benjamin Wainwright. Stefanie Martini plays Madame Maigret. PBS describes it as the first contemporary television adaptation of the novels, placing the familiar detective and his cases in present-day Paris rather than treating the period setting as essential to the formula. PBS’s series page and the first episode page establish the series’ premise and cast.

The move to the present changes the texture of the investigation: phones and computers belong in Maigret’s world now. But the central dramatic question is not whether the detective can use modern tools. It is whether the adaptation can preserve the patient, humane attention to character that makes him distinct from a puzzle-solving machine. The series’ production feature presents that people-first approach as central to its conception, while also describing Madame Maigret as more active in this version and identifying her as a psychiatric nurse. Those choices are promising; they matter most when the stories give them room to shape events rather than treating them as labels.

Three cases give Season 1 its shape

The first season aired on PBS from October 5 through November 9, 2025. Its six episodes form three two-part cases, a structure that gives each story space to develop while asking the show to sustain momentum beyond a single episode. PBS MASTERPIECE’s Season 1 schedule and descriptions lay out the cases.

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Two-part story Central strands
“The Lazy Burglar” The murder of burglar Honoré Cuendet and a series of bank robberies
“Maigret’s Failure” The disappearance of a social-media influencer and threats against businessman Ferdinand Fumal
“Maigret Comes Home” A student’s murder and danger to Countess Sophie and the Saint-Fiacre estate

That range makes the season a useful test of the premise. Its cases set Maigret against contemporary public life, private vulnerability, and inherited social worlds, rather than repeating one kind of crime or setting. The paired format can support the slow accumulation of clues and relationships that suits the character, but it also requires the separate threads to feel connected rather than merely adjacent.

The opening case puts Maigret’s instincts under pressure

“The Lazy Burglar – Part One,” which aired October 5, 2025, runs 52 minutes and 14 seconds. Maigret is occupied with a series of bank robberies when burglar Honoré Cuendet is murdered. Against his superior’s orders, he pursues Cuendet’s killing; the choice puts his career at risk, while the robbers strike again as he closes in. PBS’s episode description establishes that collision of cases and the personal stakes of Maigret’s decision.

It is an apt opening for a detective whose work depends on attention to people, not simply obedience to procedure. The murder pulls him toward an individual case even as the robbery investigation demands his time and the institution expects him to follow orders. That tension gives the contemporary police setting a dramatic purpose: modern systems may change how information moves, but they do not resolve the question of what Maigret owes to a victim—or what his judgment may cost him.

Does the modernization preserve the classic appeal?

The most convincing version of a contemporary Maigret is not a detective made “modern” by technology alone. It is one whose surroundings have changed while his way of looking at people remains legible. Phones and computers can make the investigations belong to the present; the deeper test is whether the stories still turn on careful observation, empathy, and the difficult business of understanding motives.

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The season’s three paired cases give that approach room to encounter different lives, from a murdered burglar to a missing influencer and the world around an old estate. They also create a clear standard for judging the adaptation: do the cases deepen Maigret’s understanding, and do the linked episodes make each investigation feel more substantial? The official descriptions establish the setup and intended update, not how fully every episode delivers on them. The praise, then, rests on the strength of the series’ underlying design: it recognizes that Simenon’s detective can inhabit contemporary Paris without losing the human focus that distinguishes him.

Verdict

Maigret is a promising, thoughtfully framed return to a classic detective, with a present-day setting that refreshes the cases without making technology the point. Its first season’s three two-part stories offer a substantial foundation, and the opening investigation neatly places Maigret’s instincts in conflict with official orders. “Near-perfect” is an unusually high bar, not an established critical consensus; the more defensible judgment is that this adaptation understands what must survive a modernization: the detective’s attention to human beings.

Rank #4
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Season 2 and where to check availability

PBS’s series page schedules Season 2 to debut Sunday, October 18, 2026, at 9/8c on MASTERPIECE Mystery! The same page reported that no episodes were then available to stream there; broadcast and streaming access can vary by local station and date. Check PBS’s series page for current scheduling and availability.

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