I'm a big fan of the original Montalbano series. They did a prequel of it showing how Montalbano started his police job in Vigata, met his colleagues for the first time, and how his long love story with Livia begun. The way this is constructed is solid; the relation with the original "older" Montalbano works very well, and fans will appreciate the background they get. Also, I find the character development credible and at times intriguing. So when it comes to the development of the main roles and the interaction between them, and how this develops between the Young and original series, this is flawless. So ultimately the concept of these prequels works out well.
Of course it was difficult to cast this. Good actors were needed, but also the connection to the original Montalbano needed to be taken into account. The focus wasn't so much on physical similarity, but rather on a similar character and style. By and large they did well. They made me buy and connect to these actors as being earlier versions of the same persons despite obvious discrepancies in their looks.
Other than that it's again Italian whodunnits that show some interesting characters, a lot of Sicilian scenery and food, witty dialogues and some humour, and some social and humanistic commentary. It has basically all the same ingredients as the original Montalbano, and also the stories work in quite similar ways. Realism and credibility of the murder cases and the stories behind them are hit and miss, but always entertaining enough (I've seen much worse than the worst here, but the best aren't the pinnacles of crime cases either).
The problem here is that it is too clear that they wanted to appeal to fans of the original series; this is mostly more of the same. And then, well, the actors are well chosen for their character connection with the original Montalbano, but still the original ones are the originals and what we have here is some kind of copies, even if high quality copies. Still every role loses a bit of the original spark here, just being "reproduced" in one way or another. And the Young Montalbano himself is certainly credible and well played, but less fun than his forerunner (actually successor in fictional time) Luca Zingaetti. Similar things can be said about the others, all good, all not quite at the level of the original series.
So watch at least some of the original Montalbano first. If you love that, you'll appreciate this series as well, they are really well integrated with each other. Still, this one is (quality-wise) the original Montalbano minus ten percent.
Of course it was difficult to cast this. Good actors were needed, but also the connection to the original Montalbano needed to be taken into account. The focus wasn't so much on physical similarity, but rather on a similar character and style. By and large they did well. They made me buy and connect to these actors as being earlier versions of the same persons despite obvious discrepancies in their looks.
Other than that it's again Italian whodunnits that show some interesting characters, a lot of Sicilian scenery and food, witty dialogues and some humour, and some social and humanistic commentary. It has basically all the same ingredients as the original Montalbano, and also the stories work in quite similar ways. Realism and credibility of the murder cases and the stories behind them are hit and miss, but always entertaining enough (I've seen much worse than the worst here, but the best aren't the pinnacles of crime cases either).
The problem here is that it is too clear that they wanted to appeal to fans of the original series; this is mostly more of the same. And then, well, the actors are well chosen for their character connection with the original Montalbano, but still the original ones are the originals and what we have here is some kind of copies, even if high quality copies. Still every role loses a bit of the original spark here, just being "reproduced" in one way or another. And the Young Montalbano himself is certainly credible and well played, but less fun than his forerunner (actually successor in fictional time) Luca Zingaetti. Similar things can be said about the others, all good, all not quite at the level of the original series.
So watch at least some of the original Montalbano first. If you love that, you'll appreciate this series as well, they are really well integrated with each other. Still, this one is (quality-wise) the original Montalbano minus ten percent.