Good Television Mystery Series

[Paul Farquhar]

From what I've been told Hustle was probably a pretty solid inspiration for Leverage, but not having seen the British show I cannot comment on the differences.

Leverage is, over all, light and positive TV. Person of Interest... isn't.

I enjoyed Hustle. The main difference is that in Hustle, although they only target bad guys, they are not doing it specifically to right wrongs. Its more a case of greed making them easier targets to be conned. It also focuses more on the con and less on crawling through air conditioning vents. The first episode directly lifted the plot of The Sting.

Leverage is a bit more like Mission: Impossible without government backing.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Before I got into mysteries myself, my Dad loved The Cadfael Chronicles. I’ve never watched them myself, but since my tastes in mysteries strongly resemble his, I’d probably dig it.

The Cadfael Chronicles - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The books were better. It suffers from the same problem as the recent Shardlake adaptation: it struggles to balance historical authenticity with seeing the world from the perspective of the protagonists rather than through modern eyes.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Older mystery shows:

Well, there are the classics, aren’t there? They’ve mostly been mentioned already. I have a weakness for Columbo and Murder She Wrote.

The UK has a rich crop of those based on classic detective fiction, such as:

- Miss Marple (1980s): Starring Joan Hickson, Agatha Christie’s own choice for the part. Superlative and much better than the 00s remakes (with Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie)

- Sherlock Holmes (1980s): Jeremy Brett is the definitive original Victorian Holmes. However, if we’re looking at all Holmes adaptations ever, Elementary is my personal favourite. Sherlock is terrible.

- Poirot (1990s-2010s): David Suchet is the definitive Poirot. Nuff said.

- Lord Peter Wimsey (Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night, 1980s): For my money, the best version of Dorothy L Sayers’ detective is Edward Petherbridge when paired with Harriet Walter as Harriet Vane. Absolutely perfect.

- Campion (1980s): Peter “5th Doctor” Davison as Margery Allingham’s sleuth. Decent.

- The Mrs Bradley Mysteries (1990s): Diana Rigg as Gladys Mitchell’s shrewd investigator. Also excellent.

I haven’t been a big fan of anything else turned out in the UK in recent years, though both the Magpie and Mayflower Murders were fine.

There are some very good BBC radio versions of all of these available on BBC Sounds if you can get that. Whilst Hickson Marple, Suchet Poirot and Brett Holmes managed to do pretty much all the original stories, the Petherbridge Wimseys only did a fraction, and missed some really great ones.

I'm a bit dubious about the other Campion stories, they tend to wander into spy fi territory and the fantastical.

There was also a Partners in Crime TV series in the 80s with Francesca Annis and James Warwick, which would qualify for the "Underrated" thread.