So You Signed Up for Acorn To Watch Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears…Here’s What Else You Should Watch
The title says it all. If you’re like me, you have a little more free time right now and if you signed up for two free weeks, well, why not take advantage and watch some other things. I’ve mostly focused on other mystery and crime shows. This is of course a completely subjective list.
Also, there’s a 7 day free trial. So you probably won’t watch everything.
And while I did mostly focus on crime shows, most of them are on the more lighthearted side of things. If you’re looking for something darker and nourish there’s a long list of series including Mystery Road, Dead Lucky, Jack Irish, Loch Ness, Jack Taylor, and Chasing Shadows. Plus some old classics like Wire in the Blood and Murphy’s Law.
Also, Vera, which stars Brenda Blethyn, and is an excellent show and a great character drama. Blethyn’s Vera is on my list of favorite TV detectives of all time.
Also, I’m listing these in alphabetical order because that’s just how my brain works. And it should go without saying, I probably forgot about at least five shows that I intended to mention.
800 Words. An Australian newspaper columnist who was recently widowed moves with his two children to a small coastal town in New Zealand that’s filled with oddball characters. It’s a little Northern Exposure, a little Everwood, but there’s a reason why people come back to that plot conceit. The writing is smart and funny, the actors are talented, and it manages to both be funny without ignoring the pain and loss and unsettling nature of life after someone close to you dies.
Agatha Raisin. The character worked in PR in London and decided to retire early while she was still young enough to enjoy life and bought a home in the country – and then finds herself around and in the midst of murders. Ashley Jenson (Extras, Ugly Betty) plays the titular character and she is amazing and really gets to show off what she can do. The show also has an excellent supporting cast and as the show has gone on and spent more time with them, the show has definitely improved. Making Sarah a more central character was a great move. Though losing Katy Wix, who played Jemma, hurt the show. Her cousin Toni, played by Jodie Tyack, replaced her but just isn’t as much fun.
After the 90 minute pilot (Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death), the first season was all 45 minute episodes, which I’m not a huge fan of. Since then the show has gone back to 90 minute episodes, which I think has served the characters and the stories much better. If you like the longer ones, go back and watch the first season. It’s fun, they’re not bad, just not as good.
The Brokenwood Mysteries. A show about police in a rural community in New Zealand, just north of Auckland. The pilot introduces the characters including a field inspector who afterwards decides to stay on and run the department. He’s a country music fan and drives a 1971 Holden Kingswood. Which means nothing to me, except that it’s an old car. I’m not a country music fan, but I have looked up and downloaded music based on the show.
I won’t say I love the show but I enjoy it. It’s an easy show to like, especially after the first season as they started adding a little more humor from some of the supporting characters. Mrs. Marlowe and Detective Breen and Gina and a few others help. There’s a supporting cast of locals who pop up usually at once a season as witnesses or just in passing because it’s a small-ish community.
This is a show where one episode involves a “Lord of the Ringz” tour (yes, the spelling is intentional). One involves a dead Santa Claus – sorry, a dead man in a Santa suit. Season three I think is the best (the first two and the last movie that season are all winners). But beyond the tone of the show, it’s a bit odd for Americans because this is a show where the cops are not carrying guns. This is a rural area and there are hunters all over, but it does have a different tone to the way they conduct law enforcement, which combined with the tone makes it relaxing in a way.
Cloudstreet. If you haven’t seen the Australian miniseries, it stars Essie Davis (Phryne herself), Kerry Fox, and others about two families in Perth in the 1940s and 50s based on the award-winning novel by Tim Winton. Darker and more dramatic than a lot of the shows I mention, but fabulous.
The Detectorists. Mackenzie Crook (who played Gareth - aka Dwight - in the original The Office) wrote, directed and stars in this show about members of the Danebury Metal Detecting Club. Which sounds like a broad comedy about really eccentric people, but with a cast that includes Toby Jones and Rachel Stirling – and Dame Diana Rigg – Crook manages this comedic but whistful tone, a slowly but deliberately paced show about people meandering in life. When I tried to sell my friends on the series I said that it reminded me of old 1990’s independent films in all the best ways. I won’t claim it’s perfect, but almost every episode managed to surprise me in some way. Sometimes by how funny it was but other times by how moving and strange it could be. It’s such a fun show and so bizarre and sometimes wonderfully poetic. It’s a great slice of life show and I can’t quite get the music out of my head.
Doc Martin. If you haven’t seen the recent seasons or aren’t caught up, the show is still fabulous.
And if you haven’t watched it, start form the beginning. It’s a great show.
Foyle’s War. Simply one of the best TV shows ever made.
Hamish Macbeth. Robert Carlyle played a policeman in rural Scotland who wasn’t just a good cop, he was a great cop, but he thinks this is his ideal job. He sees his role in the community a little different from most cops, often skirting the law entirely, keeping people out of jail. Also stars Shirley Henderson. I wouldn’t say it’s a great show, though I do like both Carlyle and Henderson and the character of Macbeth, but it’s relaxing. Both for the rhythms of the show and rural life, and for how he approaches his job. I feel like that might be something people want/need right now.
The Hour. Two seasons of Romola Garai, Ben Whishaw, Dominic West, Anna Chancellor, Peter Capaldi working in television news in the 1950’s which has a brilliant style and approach, incredible clothes, unbelievably talented and beautiful actors.
Midsomer Murders. You’ve heard of the show – hard not to, it’s been around for more than twenty years on British TV. Why not see what the big deal is? I’m not the biggest fan, but the show knows what it is and does it well. Inspector Barnaby and another detective look into murders in various towns and villages in the county of Midsomer. Anthony Horowitz (Foyle’s War) developed the show and wrote the pilot and worked on the first three seasons. It’s very much a traditional mystery story where the detective is dropped into a community or family and has to figure out the dynamics at play as a way to solving the case, we get a bit of the detective’s life. I’m not the biggest fan of the show, but one reason I think it’s lasted so long is its sense of humor. And I’m sure I’m missing a lot by virtue of not being British. Watch the pilot, The Killings at Badger’s Drift.
Ms. Fisher’s MODern Murder Mysteries. I like the show, but don’t love it. Though admittedly it has big shoes to fill, but I do like Geraldine Hakewill (Wanted) as Peregrine Fisher. Catherine McClements plays an old friend of Phryne’s who mentors her. Start with the first one and if you like it, keep going. There’s only the one season (so far?!?) so only four 90 minute episodes. The style is nice, it’s fun, I have no real criticism except that it’s just not Miss Fisher.
My Life is Murder. Lucy Lawless stars as Alexa Crowe, an ex-cop who now bakes and occasionally looks into cold cases when asked by her old boss, and given assistance by a police data analyst. Lawless is great as one would expect, but she’s also playing a character who is very intentionally hiding in many ways and remains a mystery to everyone around her, even as she’s trying to lay bare other people’s secrets. She’s a character in mourning, and in a sense, in hiding from herself. It’s a great role and Lawless sinks her teeth into it, getting to play a much more subdued character than she typically plays, and watching her play it and the way that over the season small pieces of her past come up, is the best part of the show.
It’s written and designed to be an episodic hour long crime show, which I’m not really a fan of. It’s helped that it doesn’t have a formulaic structure, but it’s also fun and dynamic in a lot of different ways. From the odd settings and neighborhoods around the city where scenes take place to the titles in the opening of each episode to Ebony Vagulans as the incredibly well dressed and very entertaining data analyst to Alex Andreas, who owns the neighborhood cafe that Crowe bakes bread for, it’s great fun. Not all the crimes are winners, but every other aspect of the show is great.
Queens of Mystery. I’m lukewarm about the show. Depending on the episode, I think it’s a little too annoying and twee, or I think it’s enjoyable even if it doesn’t quite manage to pull off what it’s trying to accomplish. A police detective moves back to her hometown, where her aunts all write mystery novels. There’s a mystery about her parents at the center of the show. And Juliet Stevenson narrates the whole thing and the narration makes it clear that the show is trying to be Pushing Daisies.
So whether you go, I’m okay with a Pushing Daisies like show that doesn’t quite pull it off, or, a Pushing Daisies like show without the tone and visual style that defined it would be annoying, well, that determines whether you’ll watch it. Honestly, I think I had both opinions every episode at different points. At the same time, I did watch all the episodes. So really, I’m no help.
And I like all the actors, but Julie Graham (The Bletchley Circle, Shetland) as one of her aunts, who’s a bisexual ex-musician turned graphic novelist, is fabulous.
Rome: Empire Without Limit and Caligula. Mary Beard is one of the smartest classicists around and watching the series, she shows that she must be an incredible teacher as she travels around, walking us through the rise and the fall of Rome and the life and legacy of Caligula, respectively. Honestly it makes me want to go to grad school to study the classics, if only to sit in a classroom with her.
Admittedly, daily life feels like we’re living through the fall of Rome as overseen by someone who makes Caligula look more incompetent than he thought possible, so it might not be how one wants to relax.
Slings and Arrows. If you haven’t seen the Canadian series set at a Shakespeare festival, I envy you because it is one of my favorite things and one of the best TV shows ever made. It also has an incredible cast including Paul Gross, Mark McKinney (yes, the guy from Kids in the Hall, who also co-created and co-wrote the series), Don McKeller, Luke Kirby, Rachel McAdams, Sarah Polley, and in one of his final roles as a dying actor starring in King Lear, the late William Hutt. It is about art and life and joy and possibility and reinvention and always worth rewatching. And these themes, about what lasts, about what we need to let go, about confronting change, might be something we all need.