Spiral, French TV and Dixon of Dock Green

I had never watched the French police series "Spiral" ("Engrenages" in France). French TV does not have a good reputation anywhere - not even in France, so I never bothered. Anyway, a friend recently lent me the box set of  Series 1-4 and, as I have been laid up for the past couple of weeks with a virus, I thought I might as well watch the whole set. Series 1 was produced in 2005, Series Two in 2008, Three in 2010 and Four in 2012. I have not seen Series 5, and Wikipedia says that Series 6 is in production now. It would be reasonable to suppose from this that "Spiral" is a success story for French TV and it is worth examining what has brought about that success, given that French TV is rated as being so dire.
To attempt to answer that question, I shall use the French word for gratuitous -" gratuit". There is plenty that is gratuit in Spiral, and I think this what has made the show so successful. In a nutshell,  there is gratuit horror, gratuit violence and gratuit sex.
When first you encounter the Parisian police squad who are the heroes of this series, your initial impression is of a seedy, down-at-heel bunch, dressed in clothes that come from the French equivalent of Primark. That impression is a lasting impression, as they are wearing the same clothes in Series Four that they wore in Series One. Paris police must be badly underpaid.
There are six main characters in the show, three belonging to the squad and three to the legal profession, who appear in every series. Heading up the squad is  Police Captain Laure Berthaud, a formidable young (ish) woman with a tempestuous love life and a ferocious temper. One example of this happens when she does not get her way in something, shouts "Shit! shit! shit!" ( in French of course) and bangs her head against a wall in front of her colleagues. Juliet Bravo or Vera would not have approved.
Another squad regular is Police Lieutenant Gilles "Gilou" Escoffier, who is a bit of a lad, to say the least. In the first series, we see him snorting cocaine and cavorting with prostitutes. Mind you, he's given that up by Series Two. In a later series, he provides a police firearm to gangsters which they use to murder a man. Somehow, he gets away with all his misdeeds, but he'd never have lasted with Inspector Morse. Police Lieutenant Frédéric "Tintin" Fromentin is the nice guy of the team and thought of as being stable. As he tells his colleagues in nearly every programme that he has four children, it's a surprise they don't think of him as just being bloody boring.
The legal eagles are: Judge François Roban, (earnest and dependable); Assistant Prosecutor Pierre Clément, (weak, divorced and easily led); Lawyer Joséphine Karlsson (Venal, very good defence lawyer and very sexy). Roban is a man of integrity who frequently upsets his less-than-incorruptible superiors. Through the four series, Clement abandons his role as a prosecutor and goes into partnership with Karlsson, with whom he enjoys good relations of every kind, despite not approving of her working for gangsters.
We may well wonder what has catapulted a show with dubious characters like this into prominence around the world, so much so that Wikipedia says:
"Spiral has been an export success, with sales to broadcasters in more than 70 countries including, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom"
Well, as I said above, the three gratuit factors of horror, violence and sex must have helped greatly. Horror is endemic to the show; photographs of mutilated corpses are presented indulgently to camera (so you get plenty of time to look!), as are all the many cadavers littered throughout the action. Autopsies are carried out with chilling sound effects (the programme makers must have used frozen meat).
As for violence, it becomes rather difficult to distinguish between the violence of the police squad and that of the criminals. Gilou, for instance, beats up suspects in a way that Dixon of Dock Green (or should I say "Dixon de Dock Green"?) would never have countenanced. Captain Berthaud is a little more restrained, although, on an off-duty date, she pulls a revolver on a man who gets fresh with her. Anyway, there is plenty of violence, physical, mental and sexual - enough for all the family.
Sex is never far from Captain Berthaud, and she strikes you as a lady who needs as much of it as she can get. I lost count of her affairs in all the series - I should have kept score, but didn't. Her relationship with another police squad leader blossoms in Series Three and Four, as evidenced in a memorable nude sex scene. Gilou and Tintin, alas, are not so lucky, but, then, Tintin has four children. Roban has little success, if any, but Clement and Karlsson hit the jackpot on several occasions. Clement enjoys (very much) a dalliance with Captain Berthaud, while Karlsson has successful encounters with a number of people, one being a lawyer some years older, who she thinks will advance her career. Clement and Karlsson get it on together on the lawn outside her father's house at her sister's wedding reception. I found it hard to comprehend this: Karlsson sees her widower father; he gasps; she alludes to something that passed between her and her father years before; she and Clement have stand-up sex on the lawn. I must have missed something here. Whatever, the incredible thing is that they are enjoying each other vertically about 20 feet from a window, and none of the partygoers inside seem to notice, not even when Karlsson has her loud "When Harry Met Sally" moment (i.e. an orgasm). I know French people are thought to be highly sophisticated in these matters, but that is ridiculous.
Well, it looks as if Spiral is turning around the fortunes of French TV, but we're certainly a long way from Dixon of Dock Green.