Stream It Or Skip It?
A lot of series go on a season — or at least a few episodes — too long. Even if you like the characters or are intrigued by the situations those characters are in, there is just a feeling as you watch the show wheeze to the finish line that the writers really ran out of story. That’s the feeling we get with Netflix’s hit drama from Greece.
MAESTRO IN BLUE SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Sheet music for a composition called “Infidel.”
The Gist: “Infidel” is one of the short pieces that composer Orestis Emmanuel (Christopher Papakaliatis) has been writing after being forced out of his teaching job at a music conservancy in Athens. He’s also a stay-at-home-dad to his baby daughter, who was born shortly before he and his hard-charging wife Alexandra (Stefania Goulioti) separated. She has signed divorce papers, but for some reason he can’t seem to bring himself to sign them and dissolve their tumultuous marriage.
In the meantime, Klelia (Klelia Andriolatou) catches her boyfriend Thanos (Dimitris Kitsos) cheating on her again. She decides this is the last straw and moves out of their apartment, but not before the supposed “good guy” her parents envisioned her being with hits her and comes close to sexually assaulting her. After she leaves, a police detective encourages her to press charges. She wants to meet up with Orestis, her former flame, but gets cold feet when she sees him with his daughter.
Alexandra is looking to move on, in both business and her marriage, and Orestis is horrified when he finds out that she helped get him fired from the conservatory. After their daughter has an accident at home, he finally signs the papers. That frees him up to go back to Klelia, and they reconnect back in Paxos, where they met.
In Paxos, Dimosthenis (Kostas Berikopoulos) continues to investigate the murder of Charalambos (Yannis Tsortekis). He seems to be closer to implicating both Charalabos’ son Spyros (Yorgos Benos), who buried the rifle, and Klelia’s brother Antonis (Orestis Chalkias), who pulled the trigger. That also means he’s getting closer to implicating the town’s mayor, Fanis (Fanis Mouratidis); he is Klelia and Antonis’ father, and he and his wife Sophia (Marisha Triantafyllidou) assisted in the cover-up.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Take How To Get Away With Murder and move it to a sunny Mediterranean seaside village, and you have Maestro In Blue.
Our Take: Maestro In Blue (original title: Maestro), tries to get clever during its final four episodes; in the first episode, scenes are given subtitles corresponding to the compositions Orestis has written during his hiatus from the conservancy. But in reality, at this point the show is pure soap opera, focusing on Orestis and Klelia and the investigation into the death of Charalabos. Are the two stories connected? Perhaps. But it feels that these final episodes are hurtling towards a conclusion that feels preordained.
Despite their age difference, the romance between Orestis and Klelia seemed real, mainly because Klelia was very mature for her age. So now to see the two of them together, unencumbered by existing relationships or family expectations, tells us that, even if there are bumps along the way, they’ll end the series as a couple.
As far as the murder investigation is concerned, this is really a Columbo-style cat-and-mouse game at this point, pitting Dimosthenis against Fanis. Fanis thinks he has the upper hand on the retiring police colonel, but Dimosthenis seems to pop up in places Fanis never expected to see him in. It’s going to be four episodes of who is the last one to outsmart whom, with Fanis likely to be ending the series in handcuffs.
All that being said, it feels like there’s a fair amount of filler in the final season, given each episode’s hour-plus runtimes. For instance, there is an extended scene where Alexandra calls in the wrong person to ask to join her in her new venture, and ends up firing him instead. Then she offers him dinner. Yes, it shows how ruthless and awkward Alexandra is, but we already knew that through the first two seasons.
Sex and Skin: Of course, there’s going to be both in this series.
Parting Shot: Two Jeeps pull up and men who look like organized crime thugs get out, holding a fish on a hook.
Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to the scenery of the location that stands in for Paxos.
Most Pilot-y Line: Another cutesy device used in the first episode is Orestis talking to his parents on FaceTime, with mixed references to the present and wistful phrases like “I wished you were able to meet her.” By the time you realize he’s imagining talking to people who died 30 years ago, you’re thoroughly confused.
Our Call: STREAM IT; we’re giving a tepid recommendation for the final season of Maestro In Blue just because there’s enough there to feed fans who want to watch for completion reasons. But the third season has little to justify its existence, and feels padded even though it’s only four episodes.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
