British Police TV Shows

[JerryBaumchen 1,046]

Hi folks,

I am a big fan of good, police tv shows/movies.  I have learned to really like the British police dramas.  I am currently watching the best one I have ever seen:  Line of Duty

I am currently in the middle of Series 4; the best yet.

I can recommend this one. YMMV.

Jerry Baumchen

[wolfriverjoe 1,339]

The US networks have become fairly predictable. And they're basically doing the same show over & over. NCIS, CSI, ect. Cliched and ridiculous. I simply cannot watch them anymore.

The Brits seem to do it just 'different enough' that I can actually watch it.
I've seen a few episodes of 'Luther' on PBS. Those are interesting.

There's also "Father Brown Mysteries" and "Death in Paradise" that are currently running on PBS. 

[neilmck 36]

Here in France, it is "Midsummer Murders" that is very popular.  It is a mix of down-to-earth human characters, beautiful Kent countryside and total lack of technology or everything being solved by DNA testing, that makes it so popular.

[WV177RG 19]

Thanks for these recommendations, guys.  Prime Suspect, starring Helen Mirren, is another great British police procedural.  Really gritty character studies.  (DVD, Netflix+)

Bonus evening: Sleuth with Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine.  Terrific production, though not a police drama.

Edited December 8, 2020 by WV177RG

[Bokdrol 40]

Try Ashes to Ashes/Life on Mars (modern retro) Whitechapel (it's Ok - latter day Jack the Ripper stuff) The Fall (very dark, probably the best of my list) Top of the Lake (British but filmed in NZ) all on Netflix platform

Edited December 8, 2020 by Bokdrol

[pchapman 261]

There's quite a variety out there. I'll include 'mysteries with private investigators' here too, not just ones with police.

Season long story arc shows allow better story telling, and get all the attention these days for being quality tv, but I have tended to stick to the 'one set of crimes' per episode shows, so it is the latter that I mention here.

British crime shows can also be ones that try to be all modern and super gritty (with the nastiest sexual crimes & worst looking dead bodies), or the ones which try to be more genteel, including the ones that only seem to involve rich people doing each other in while showcasing all the big country mansions of England -- whether in modern times or period pieces from bygone ages, and so on. 

 

Vera is a really good show I'd recommend. Plenty of seasons. Still ongoing. Good leading character. One crime per show. Not trying to be super gritty but also staying modern.

Father Brown  is indeed good. Lighthearted 50s (?) period piece, but engaging, with a good lead character.

Midsomer Murders is a little slow paced but decent light entertainment and popular for many seasons. Not gritty, although they do have their bizarre murders to add variety. All small town England, lots of old buildings and big estates.

Lewis was good, finished up a few years ago, and was a bit like Midsomer, but I liked it for being a little tighter on the pacing and set in Oxford.

Endeavour is good - someone playing the young Inspector Morse, a current show set back in the 60s. It's not just about the murders, but also his life, so there's a bit more of the soap opera compared to shows that don't deal with the characters' lives as much.

A couple classics from around the 90s are Inspector Morse, and A Touch of Frost.  Typical British shows with good quality, as they only did a small number of shows each of their many seasons.

Prime Suspect. Not a lot of shows of the latter, more like specials spread out over many years, but the shows are very well done. Helen Mirren is indeed a good lead.

There were plenty of shows from the 80s that took 3 or 4 episodes to finish one crime, and it sometimes seemed like one had to spend an hour learning all the relationships between people before anyone even died. "Somebody PLEASE get murdered and get the investigation started!" I kept thinking.

(PD James' Dalgliesh was like that, decent but only if one could stand how long things took. Pacing has definitely picked up over the decades, although the old long shows were able to go into more detail about characters. Campion is also older and slow paced.)

The actor in the latter, Peter Davison, was also in the lesser known police detective show, The Last Detective, in the 2000s. Decent investigations with a bit of lighthearted character background added in.

A couple shows I didn't like so much are the recent Queens of Mystery and Agatha Raisin. They're in the category of quirky private investigators, and while some were fun, some got too silly.

Many of the  Agatha Christie's Miss Marple (2000s roughly) were good, but sometimes overly long.

Agatha Christie's Poirot  was very enjoyable, the one with David Suchet's take on the main character. One of those very engaging quirky characters that makes the watching fun.  Earlier seasons were more light hearted, lighter comedic aspects with a bigger cast of characters, while the later seasons were more serious, leaving aside the minor characters.

Slightly odd ones with more bizzare plots would be the well liked Luther, or Wire in the Blood ... but it's been a while since I saw them. More gritty, and more likely to deal with some super-genius serial killer over multiple episodes if I recall correctly. Touching Evil  had the same lead actor as Wire in the Blood and I think was more straight forward but still gritty.

The older DCI Banks  was watchable but sometimes the lead character did dumb things and was just generally a little too simplistically angry, although the show later improved. 

While I watched all the regular Law & Order shows from the US, the Law & Order UK show (that ended some years back) wasn't nearly as good.  Decent at times, but a bit too much trying to be over dramatically emotionally caught up with the crimes -- reminding my of the Simpson's meme, "Won't somebody please think of the children!".

I'll mention one great show in a slightly different category:  Babylon from 2014 or so. t was pretty much a mini series of 8 or so episodes, not a police procedural, but more about the politics and back stabbing at a London police HQ, with various police operations thrown in.  I don't know others' tastes, but I found it super intense, fast paced, and absorbing, something the best British political shows are good at. Reminded me a bit of the way the US movie L.A. Confidential had a lot of different stuff going on at once.

There are a whole bunch more out there, especially older stuff, but that's enough.

Don't know what's on what channel, or where to find older shows now, as I have torrented lots of stuff.  Sometimes funny having a huge flat screen TV yet sometimes be watching 404 line 4:3 aspect ratio shows from the 80s...

[wmw999 2,114]

That's very comprehensive! I see some bad-weather binge watching in my future.

Wendy P.

[JerryBaumchen 1,046]

Hi folks,

Thanks for all of the input.  Like Wendy, I now have some to watch.

Here are some of my thoughts:

Luther – I’ve watched a few of these – interesting - I like Idris Elba

Father Brown Mysteries – I just never got into this one

Death in Paradise – This one just seemed dumb to me

Midsomer Murders – Slow & plodding, but a little entertaining

 Prime Suspect – Good, but I only saw a few of them

 The Fall – My second favorite of them all – IMO she is a hottie

 Top of the Lake – Just ordered these from my public library

 Vera – Good but no longer on PBS

 Inspector Lewis – I liked these – not much ‘edge of your seat’ but interesting

 Endeavour – One of my favorites – I like all of the actors

 Inspector Morse – My local PBS just repeated these so I was able to watch them

 A Touch of Frost – I really liked this series – I found out what ‘porkies’ means in the UK

 DCI Banks – I read the books first, so I liked this one

 Law & Order UK – I really liked this one but only the first two seasons are available in the US video format

 Jerry Baumchen

 

 

[JerryBaumchen 1,046]

3 hours ago, wmw999 said:

That's very comprehensive! I see some bad-weather binge watching in my future.

Wendy P.

Hi Wendy,

My second favorite is:  The Fall

The Fall (TV series) - Wikipedia

I'm very sure that you will like it.

Jerry Baumchen

[Bokdrol 40]

13 hours ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Wendy,

My second favorite is:  The Fall

The Fall (TV series) - Wikipedia

I'm very sure that you will like it.

Jerry Baumchen

One more series to note  'The Tunnel'. It's excellent, a Brit/French detective series and has another good looking French detective (sort of cast in the mould of Carrie from Homeland but not bi-polar) if that floats your boat. It's 99% in English if you don't like subtitles. And if you don't mind subtitles there's a whole raft of Scandi-Noir police stuff available e,g, The Bridge - very watchable, very dark, very well acted and put together. Personally, I don't mind subtitles. My wife, who is far far more intelligent than me, can't stand them. 

[headoverheels 291]

There is a British Wallander series (about a Swedish detective), as well as the earlier Swedish series of the same name -- identical concept and some of the overall plot, but not exactly the same.

I have the entire Frost series on DVD.  My wife was glad after a few seasons, when I stopped saying "he's driving my old car!" at every sighting.

[kallend 1,618]

I guess the Brits don't have enough real murders so they compensate with made-for-TV ones.

I like pretty much all of the above, and also recommend SILK (about criminal trial lawyers, not police), INSPECTOR LINLEY MYSTERIES, and  SCOTT & BAILEY (female detectives).

If you like gruesome medical examiner/police dramas, SILENT WITNESS.

And for light hearted stuff, (old but humorous) RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY 

[JerryBaumchen 1,046]

3 minutes ago, kallend said:

I guess the Brits don't have enough real murders so they compensate with made-for-TV ones.

I like pretty much all of the above, and also recommend SILK (about criminal trial lawyers, not police), INSPECTOR LINLEY MYSTERIES, and  SCOTT & BAILEY (female detectives).

If you like gruesome medical examiner/police dramas, SILENT WITNESS.

And for light hearted stuff, (old but humorous) RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY 

Hi John,

Thanks for the thoughts.  I've seen them all except for Rumpole.

I'll start watching the final series of Line of Duty tonite.

Jerry Baumchen

PS)  Since my son is an attorney, I thought Silk was very interesting.  To me, odd that the same people both prosecute & defend criminals.

Edited December 14, 2020 by JerryBaumchen

[pchapman 261]

I did watch Scott & Bailey. The two women were compelling main characters, although especially in the middle seasons, it was too much of a soap opera, with them always having to deal with some family crisis or something, outside of the detective work.

If one liked Silk, one should also look for the slightly earlier "North Square", that dealt with a chamber of criminal lawyers, most trying to climb over the others to greater success, while also dealing with their cases.  The show (just 1 season I think) had the same writer and a couple of the same actors.

 

[tharv17 0]

Some good Australian and New Zealand shows too. 

Mystery Road is great. Two seasons and each season cover a single crime. 

Miss Fisher is lots of fun too and takes place in 1920s Australia. Light at times which is not a bad thing.

Brokenwood is a New Zealand production and is also very good. Episodic so you dont need to binge. 

My Life is Murder is great and a fun way to pretend you are in Melbourne. 

[WV177RG 19]

Thanks for the great recommendations.  We enjoyed DCI Banks.  Now into season 4 of Line of Duty.  Excellent!  Plots have more twists and hairpin turns than Lombard Street in San Francisco:

[SethInMI 145]

On 12/7/2020 at 10:24 PM, JerryBaumchen said:

I am currently watching the best one I have ever seen:  Line of Duty

just finished 3rd episode of season 1. quite the ride, and yes it's twisty from the start.

[JerryBaumchen 1,046]

11 minutes ago, SethInMI said:

just finished 3rd episode of season 1. quite the ride, and yes it's twisty from the start.

Hi Seth,

The invoice for my consulting services will go out tomorrow.

Jerry Baumchen

[SethInMI 145]

(spoiler alert season 1):

i gotta say Jerry:

that ended pretty darkly. in fact about a dark an ending as I can remember a tv show having. is that a consistent hallmark of the rest of the seasons? don't want details, but the wife is not interested it watching if the other seasons follow a similar pattern.

[JerryBaumchen 1,046]

1 hour ago, SethInMI said:

(spoiler alert season 1):

i gotta say Jerry:

that ended pretty darkly. in fact about a dark an ending as I can remember a tv show having. is that a consistent hallmark of the rest of the seasons? don't want details, but the wife is not interested it watching if the other seasons follow a similar pattern.

Hi Seth,

I have no real idea on what your wife likes to watch.  I thought it was great.

Maybe give the next season a go & see what you think.

Or move on,

Jerry Baumchen

[SethInMI 145]

we both liked the show. we like the complicated character action-y dramas, like Breaking Bad, Ozark, Fargo so it fit that bill. I think we will try Season 2. 

[SethInMI 145]

On 2/13/2021 at 1:52 PM, SethInMI said:

I think we will try Season 2

now starting Season 3

[techyrishav 0]

Is Bodyguard season 2 in production?