I agree. About an hour's worth of story stretched to nearly 2 hours. There's far too much padding, particularly involving Livia. Generally very good, understated acting though and well shot with spectacular scenery and much better than the majority of garbage that masquerades as drama these days.

I like that the episodes are given time to breath and that the plotting is sometime almost incidental. However, last night's did stretch credulity: how did Angelica's revenge plan of exposing the loan shark to the mafia & the authorities require the elaborate pre-burglaries? Plus I thought Angelica the least convincing femme fatale yet.

There's usually tends to be a fair amount of Livia though. I do agree though that there was too little material stretched over too long a time frame with this particular episode - and the burglary plotline wasn't even interesting. It's a shame that some people new to old Monty (having got into the young Monty series) will probably be put off by this ep and not bother again. Old Monty is so much better than this ep suggests.

And it was funny to see Mimi with a 'tache - probably was a nod to the younger version of himself, as suggested on the previous page.

When we left old Monty I think I recall that him and Livia had split up. So here they're just back together again with no explanation; is that right? Just wondering whether I've missed something.

deleted - wrong info

Just caught up with this on ipayer as was out last night.

Impressed with it and especially with Luca .
Ok he's not as searingly hot as Michele but he's definitely attractive! Also he seems more physically expressive which really draws you into his character. His frustrations and banter with Catarella were really funny too .
The set up and characters seem very familiar from Il Giovane and it has the exact same charm and atmosphere.

Points I wasn't keen on =
- the story seemed a little laboured at times
- what the hell is up with Livia?. She just seemed too simpery and annoying. Also terribly dubbed! She's actually speaking English I'm sure of it, because when she says something and you read it on the subtitles eg "Salvo, I'm really sorry", her lips move exactly with the English words!! I was glad when she sodded off to Genoa!
This was the only jarring thing I found.

Still a fan of Monty though

Oh and I noticed the continuity announcer woman before the show started made an error. She said that it's the new series of old Monty etc and then said that he has now become an Inspector, implying that's a difference between the young and old series. He was already an Inspector as young Monty; hence why he asked one of the other characters if they didn't think he was up to the job due to his age. Whoever wrote that line at the Beeb hasn't been watching the Michele version very closely...or at all.

I don't like this new Livia (another dubbed one!) and it doesn't help that I find Livia an unappealing character anyway! But yes as I say above, it's a shame this series kicked off with a laboured ep as it may have discouraged some fans of the young series. It's normally much better than this; it needed another plot to complement the main one which was quite dull.

It'll pick up. It was a good get-to-know episode for me anyway.

Agree about Livia. Why do they have to have dubbed one??
The one from Il Giovane was good and, while not my favourite character, she seemed to have some oomph and sincerity.

This can't come across in the dubbed one, because by definition an obvious dub sounds contrived and detached.

This is what we were saying. What was supposed to have happened in-between, have we missed out on a couple of episodes ?
I see this is the start of Italian series 9, only broadcast in April of this year, so we are fairly up to date. I really have enjoyed the series, but have to admit this was one of the weakest episodes I have seen.

No, I don't think they had split up. The last episode was the one where he went up the fireman's ladder to sort out that elderly brother and sister who were shooting at people.

Livia phoned him after seeing it on TV and said how worried she was about him, and that he shouldn't be doing things like that at his age, and that he should have sent Mimì who was younger. They then ended up having a flaming row, as usual.

I think they do split up in this series but get back together in the final episode which involves Francois, the Tunisian boy. That is the reason Livia was brought back to this series.

When they've run out of episodes, I'd love it if the BBC broadcast all the episodes in chronological order, I'm getting confused as to what era we're in. It doesn't help thathhe's driven the same car throughout.
It seems last night moved forward a lot in time. The little boy is now ready for university?

Maybe Salvo has now become a Chief Inspector or whatever the equivalent rank in the Polizia di Stato is

We haven't been told that though; I think it was just an out and out error from the Beeb. Whoever wrote the line must have assumed he was a more junior officer in the young series.

Oh now I'm really confused. I am sure we saw them splitting up at some stage (or at least that was the strong implication unless it's faulty translation) due to him not being willing to commit properly to her. She then trotted off back up north and I remember thinking 'Oh good - that's the end of Livia then'. People on Twitter and elsewhere are confused to see them back together again too.

Someone suggested (in this thread somewhere, maybe?) that because it was co-funded by a Swedish company, they had to take Lina Perned (Swedish actress) as Livia. Perhaps it was a similar funding reason why they had Katharina Böhm forced on them as the previous Livia.

Anyhow, according to IMDB

Yeah I reckon they just looked at the two titles 'Young Montalbano' and 'Inspector Montalbano' and assumed the titles implied a progression.
Lazy!

Didn't the continuity image show him as portrayed in Young Montalbano as well as implying he'd been promoted?

The image where? All I was referring to was the woman annoucer before last night's ep who seemed to think he had only become an Inspector during the time of the old Monty series whereas we know that he became an Inspector in (I believe) episode 1 of young Monty.

Yes I noticed the odd voice announcement but it was accompanied by a static screen with a yellow background showing the title on the left and a picture of the Young Montalbano with curly hair and abeard on the right.

Can someone confirm or refute this from a recording?

I don't recall that; I think I just had the normal BBC4 ident of people on ladders sliding from side to side in a library. I wonder if it depends which region you're in. Anyway it doesn't matter really.

Having a dubbed Livia is part of the charm of Montalbano.

In fact having a Livia speaking Italian would be unthinkable.

The Livia in Young Montalbano isn't dubbed and is the best of the bunch. In the main Inspector Montalbano I'd rather see Ingrid than Livia.

The actor that plays Fazio Sr in Young Montalbano was actually in an episode of the original Inspector Montalbano series.

He played the head of a drug trafficking gang masquerading as a charity in Sense Of Touch - the one with Orlando the dog.

I agree with the Ingrid comment.

In Young Montalbano Livia was a nicer person IMO. In IM you sometimes wonder why he is still with her.

I never watched IM before YM and so I can only compare her to the Livia in YM. She wasn't my favourite character but she seems much nicer than the one in IM.