The Paradise - The Complete Second Season - DVD

Movie: A year has passed since John Moray (Emun Elliott) left his fiancée Katherine Glendenning (Elaine Cassidy) at the altar to confess his love to Denise Lovett (Jonna Vanderham). But the couple cannot live out their young happiness, as John is forced to go into exile in Paris due to the disgrace he has subjected Katherine to. The Paradise department store now seems lost to him for good. Katherine, who is now married to Tom Weston (Ben Daniels), is the new owner of the department store after the death of her father. The fact that the woman, because of whom she lost her great love, makes an ever greater career there and is even promoted by Weston, Katherine can not prevent. But Denise and John will not be happy together after his return, Katherine does not want to let that happen. And while John Moray fights tooth and nail to get Paradise back, Katherine uses all her skills to drive a wedge between Denise and her onetime fiancé...

The second season of The Paradise, a loose adaptation of Frenchman Émile Zola's novel The Ladies' Paradise, unfortunately also brings the series' final episodes. Series creator Bill Gallagher (From Lark Rise to Candleford) has once again created stirring drama fare in these new episodes, with a great set, beautiful costumes, and plenty of rousing intrigue and dramatic entanglements to keep you very entertained. Besides a few changes in the cast, after the (supposedly) happy ending of the first season, there was also an attempt to give the story a bit of fresh air with new twists and turns of fate and to put new obstacles in the way of the romance between Denise and John in particular.

The whole thing also works very well for long stretches. Especially Tom Weston, who is guarding a dark secret, is a very exciting character, who always reveals new facets of his personality and thus provides some unexpected twists. Denise also goes through an interesting development, which John in particular doesn't seem to deal with very well. This makes the relationship between the two lovers also in the second season very rousing, even if John can collect thereby by his behavior with the viewer not exactly many sympathy points.

The good level of the first season, however, the new episodes do not quite reach. Although the story already seemed from the beginning like a rather constructed costume soap, but this is only in the last half of the second season negatively noticeable, because the creators were here seemingly too strained to spice up the whole thing with exciting twists and still bring to a round end. Although it wasn't clear when filming the final episodes whether the series would continue, they opted for a finale that also works as a definitive ending. And although not all storylines are resolved satisfactorily, the last episode is quite successful as a series ending. Only the way there seems a bit bumpy and too contrived to leave the same positive overall impression as the first season.

No question, The Paradise is no second Downton Abbey. But although the dialogue lacks a bit of cleverness and some episodes have clear weaknesses, the second season again has enormous addictive potential and a consistently high entertainment value. If you love opulent costume soaps and heartfelt romances, and if you couldn't get enough of the hustle and bustle of the luxury department store in the first season, you should definitely not miss this box set. Still absolutely worth watching despite minor flaws!

Picture + Sound: Also in the second season, picture and sound quality of the DVD leave a good impression. The visuals are particularly pleasing with a very warm, atmospheric colour scheme and good overall sharpness, revealing slight weaknesses only in a few small moments. The sound remains rather restrained for a production of this genre, but presents a convincing mix of dialogue, music and ambient sounds, which together form a coherent soundscape. Good!

Extras: Bonus material has the 3-disc set unfortunately not to offer.

Conclusion: Also the second - and unfortunately also last - season of The Paradise is again a very nice series for all lovers of high-quality romance costume soaps. Even though the series can't quite keep up the level of the first season and some plot lines are a bit disappointing, the entertainment value still remains at a high level. The DVD box of the second season presents the episodes in good picture and sound quality, only on bonus material fans have to do without this time. Nevertheless, for all who already liked the first season: absolutely recommended!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp