Six reasons why you should watch 'Cherif'

Six reasons to watch the 6 seasons of French mystery series Cherif (France Televisions) starring Abdelhafid Metalsi on MHz Choice!

Say it ain’t so!

It’s not easy to say goodbye to handsome Abdelhafid Metalsi or to the merry Cherif (France Televisions) ensemble including his great love, Captain Adeline Briard (Carole Bianic), Chief Doucet (Greg Germain), ex-wife Deboara (Élodie Hesme), daughter Sarah (Mélèze Bouzid, Seasons 1-4, Sonia Bendhaou Seasons 5-6) coroner Dejax (Vincent Primault) and the unflitered Baudemont (François Bureloup) And in Season 6, young Eddy (Samir Zrouki) and his mother Jennifer (Manon Elezaar). It’s been a great ride. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning put it, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

Cherif Cast Gallery

So… why do we like Cherif (France Televisions) so much?

Maybe people aren’t always in the mood for an anti-hero: Kader Cherif is no Walter White! Cherif is an uncomplicated, entertaining TV show with a fair amount of moral clarity, where the cops are the good guys and the bad guys need to be caught. And who can resist a festive atmosphere and a team that likes each other and works together? You gotta admit, the ensemble at the police station really puts the fun in dysfunctional! IMHO, here are some of the ingredients of the secret sauce:

Cherif is happy and big-hearted
He’s intuitive about criminals
He loves his mother, Salima (Tassadit Mandi)
He’s a good dad
He’s quirky but not annoying
He loves TV

On this last point, Cherif is a shoutout to TV watchers everywhere, especially fans of 70s cop shows. There’s more TV references in this show than fireflies on a summer night. He’s this century’s Chance from “Being There,” whose enigmatic phrase was “I like to watch TV.” France has its own TV obsessives and apparently Starsky and Hutch was a huge hit when it ran there between 1978 and 1984. So the Cherif producers scored big when they got Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas) from Starsky and Hutch to guest star in an episode. For context, here’s a Huggy Bear compilation from the original US TV show:

Below is the moment from Cherif Season 5, Episode 7 where Huggy Bear pops out of Cherif’s subconscious to help him solve the crime. Cherif even complains when Huggy speaks English because the French versions were dubbed!