Query
For a new project, it is incumbent upon me to catch up on police/detective/mystery shows.
I’ve been watching many many shows, but I could always stand to watch more.
What are your favorites? Points rewarded for originality, character dynamics, structural innovation and unique point-of-view.
Currently, I am running through Season 2 of House, which, although not a police drama, is one of the best mystery shows I’ve ever seen.
Monk. The first two seasons were amazing. After that, it became more of a “Columbo with OCD” kind of thing, but when it started out it actually made me excited about a network TV show for the first time in a long time.
The Wire. It is a “police” drama, but not at all a procedural like you might be looking for. It’s probably the best television drama I’ve ever seen.
>originality, character dynamics, structural innovation and unique point-of-view.
Check, check, check, check. All VERY big checks.
Seconded, The Wire may be HBO’s best series ever, if not at least one of the top two or three.
if you haven’t seen the wire, that should be top of the list.
WE ALL AGREE, TODD ALCOTT!
Cut before it had a chance to develop, L.A. Dragnet from Law&Order caliph Dick Wolf was a grossly underrated series. Grim, gallows humor permeated the few stories, the police work was slow and deliberate, and the resolutions never failed to change the perception one developed watching the episode to that point. Oh, and Ed O’Neill was born to play a beaten down, dedicated homicide detective. His final scene at the resolution of an abduction episode is just … goddamn, seriously.
Hi Todd, long-time reader, first time caller.
My friend Kevin Hooks was the showrunner and he took a very interesting approach to the cases and characters. The network, of course, objected; wanted more standard cop procedural/characters. Kevin directs episodes of “Lost” now.
I’m finding Law & Order Criminal Intent to be quite good when it’s got Vincent D’Onofrio in it (since the past couple of seasons have had him and Chris Noth alternate episodes). Instead of splitting time between the police and the lawyers, it centres around the detectives and Goren (D’Onofrio) is one of those eccentric genius types. Not as innovative as some other shows like Monk, but definitely the best of the Law & Order series.
I am, of course, familiar with CI because my pal James Urbaniak guest-starred on it.
Man, did he creepily ever.
James was creepy but the mystery was stupid. He infects women with rare animal diseases and JUST HAPPENS to make them have sex with his zoo vet pal? He should have shot them up with something common, like staph or botulism, if he didn’t want to be caught.
So, anyways, the question.
I don’t suppose Mythbusters counts as a mystery show, so I’ll have to go with original-issue CSI. What I like is that it didn’t drag you thru every little boring detail of the character’s lives and just concentrated on unraveling the mystery. House was originally intended to be CSI, but with viruses instead of bullets. Good idea, kind of lost focus lately, tho. I think House is starting to prepare to jump the shark now that everyone is pairing up. Boring. If I wanted that, I’d watch a soap opera.
I also like those World’s Wildest Police chases shows. If someone came up with a cop drama that featured car chases as insane as what happens in real life, that would be amazing. Another thought would be to base a show on the people who do emergency medical stuff for SWAT teams. But I’m getting off the subject again.
Criminal Minds’ first season actually did have a mystery aspect to it, though lately they’ve abandoned that to a large part. But it has great character dynamics and feels the “freshest” of the crime shows on network TV.
It’s been years, but I remember loving “Millenium”.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0115270/
Life on Mars (UK)
I agree!!
Life On Mars is everything a good detective show should be, clever, well written, subtle when neccessary, funny, action packed…
It’s a great show that more people should watch, and best of all the whole thing is done in two seasons of just 8 episodes each! So you could technically watch the series in just over a week at 2 a night!!!
Also, there’s an American remake on the way from (I think) ABC, so I’m looking forward to how that turns out, but I’m not holding my breath.
Denis
I am still in love with “Hill Street Blues.” Yeah, it’s been surpassed in content (and what they could get away with) long ago by “NYPD Blue” and many more, but the original is still the greatest.
As for detective shows, I am of the old school – classic “Columbo” is always great (the later TV movies, not so much), as is the entire run of “The Rockford Files.” “Monk,” on its good days in the first couple of seasons, approached the brilliance of “Columbo,” but Peter Falk still wins out.
I’ll see your Hill Street Blues and raise you Crime Story.
I never saw Crime Story, though I have a few friends who are fanatics about it – so I’ll take your word for it.
Thing is, I’ve never been a real fan of the police procedural to begin with, and one reason I love Hill Street Blues so much is that it never felt like it was about the police work, the car chases or the gun battles – it was always about the people first and foremost.
Both seasons of Crime Story are out on DVD.
THE CLOSER is very good, and an interesting, quirky character that doesn’t overwhelm the show (unlike how MONK or HOUSE, good though they are, tend to do).
By far my favorite cop show is “Homicide: Life on the Streets”, and I am surprised no one else had mentioned it already. It has great story telling with fantastic character development over the years. And the direction and camera work were first rate. I would also recommend the book the show is based on, “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets” by David Simon.
H:LOTS/Wire
“Homicide” is one of my favorite shows, so I’m almost taken aback in my belief that “The Wire” surpasses it.
The first season of Veronica Mars is really excellent if you haven’t seen it already. Later seasons not so much, but the first season has a mostly self-contained mystery arc that allows it to stand alone pretty well anyway.
Ah! ya beat me to it by 2 minutes! Curses! 🙂
That was going to be my suggestion!
On a related note, Twin Peaks
Veronica Mars
And she reads my magazine.
–Ed.
The just-canceled Veronica Mars is a good one in terms of originality. I’m not sure how it stacks up against procedurals, but the mysteries and character dynamics are surprisingly complex. I particularly liked how, in the first two seasons, it had a backdrop of the politics, conflicts and grudges of the adult world being played out, on a smaller scale, amongst the adults’ high-school-aged kids. And it features a likeable protagonist who happily uses her deductive skills to piss off people she doesn’t like.
CRACKER
It’s the role Robbie Coltrane was born to play.
I like Dr. Who.
YEAH, I SAID IT.
He solves mysteries like whoa.
Personally, I like the 9th better than the 10th, but that’s just a preference for darker doctors…
Twin Peaks, of course.
One adam twelve, see the man…..
The first couple of seasons of The Sheild (FX) were pretty good. Bad cops, bad cops and more bad cops.
The Dresden Files (SciFi). Plenty of quirky characters, I personally like Bob.
Keen Eddie (Canceled in 2004), only had a handful of episodes. To me, it came off as someone trying to emulate Guy Richie’s work.
Re: One adam twelve, see the man…..
The Shield is one of the greatest shows in the history of anything. The first season made such an impression on me that I took to comparing just about anything to The Shield. As in, “Well, The Outlaw Josie Wales is certainly good, but is it as good as an episode of The Shield?
Second vote for the old Columbo, seven seasons of which are available on DVD.
I think there is a serious lacking of good old fashioned hard boiled detective shows. Nowadays it’s all about some gimmic. I would recommend that you check out some episodes of The Rockford Files, cause James Garner is a pretty cool PI. For good mysteries you could always go back to basics and check out some of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries (I know I saw a few on PBS when I was a kid) There was another PBS show (probably a BBC import like Holmes) called Lovejoy. It’s about an excon antique dealer played by the guy who runs the town on HBO’s Deadwood.
Ex-con antique dealer! Just what I’m looking for, I will have to track that show down.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovejoy
Series 1 is out on DVD how about that. Also, you should break into your son’s DVDs and check out some of the old Batman the animated series episodes because The Dark Knight is also quite the Detective.
I can vouch for Lovejoy as well. It’s not as hard-boiled as it sounds, but it’s clever and affable. Indeed I quite aff it. It’s adapted from a series of mystery books by Jonathan Gash. Ian MacShane is excellent, though a far cry from his gleeful malevolence on Deadwood.
Lovejoy was require viewing in my household when growing up. Great and quirky supporting cast, and a fantastic will-they-wont-they romance with the lady if the manor, played by Phylis Logan who was fantastic in Secrets & Lies
starring Helen Mirren
The “Prime Suspect” movies with Helen Mirren are terrific single-protagonist procedural mysteries, especially the first and third movies. (Most of them I think are four-hour film stories, but I don’t think I saw the fifth and sixth ones.) David Thewliss I believe is in the third one.
Steven Bochco’s “Cop Rock”… a victim of a world not ready for the police procedural musical.
More seriously, “Moonlighting” has one of those great matchings of character and actor with David Addison played by Bruce Willis. With it, Glenn Gordon Caron spawned the concept of the tv dramedy.
Best detective show? Case Closed has a quirky format that gives clues and is incredibly bizarre. Best police show? Dog the bounty hunter…because it’s cool. On another note, why must these tv shows be job related? Doctors, Police, detectives, lawyers, mafia…do people want to work when they’re not working to feel like they’re doing something with their lives?
“Murder, She Wrote” wasn’t about working! Or rather, she was trying to work, but she kept being interrupted by murders.
Beaten to the punch on Cop Rock! Damn….
Well, I liked elements of The Fugitive, Hawaii Five-O, Magnum P.I., Twin Peaks, X-files, Star Trek TNG(too often Brent Spiner was in his Sherlock Holmes getup), Quantum Leap, Criminal Minds and the CSIs. I liked the story arc’s of these shows. Twin Peaks, Star Trek and The X-Files were particularly good for this. I liked the reward of getting a tidbit of the smoking man, his relationship to Mulder and the overall UFO conspiracy while trudging through a lame werewolf/vampire/sasquatch episode.
Donald Bellisario, cheesy or not has made a mint on wide arcs.
Oops forgot to login, but I also agree about Sherlock Holmes, the series with Jeremy Brett was excellent. He was an intense MFer.
Also Poirot, with David Suchet is probably worth imbibing as part of your mystery binge.
i’m so glad to see so many of my faves already listed here, so i’m gonna throw in wire in the blood, another BBCAmerica import. features a criminal psychologist played by robson green. rawr.
homicide ranks as my number one, but i’m stil convinced that the brits do crime drama better than anybody.
Da Vinci’s Inquest — excellent and complex main characters, intriguing story arcs (which sometimes are not as tidily tied up as a viewer would normally expect), and the exploration of the social issues that are at the root of much of the crime.
And I have to agree whole-heartedly with the Veronica Mars Season 1 suggestion. Perfection.
I agree. Da Vinci’s Inquest was a brilliant breath of fresh air. The last season’s arcs were a particularly stellar crescendo of intricacy and intrique that unfortunately weren’t allowed to reach a satisfying crest (series change–Da Vinci’s City Hall– subsequent cancellation).
Best detective show ever: The Prisoner.
The Shield is just plain, ballsy fun.
Due South, the Chicago Cop & Canadian Mountie show was much better than it had any right to be.
The first season of Twin Peaks was brilliant.
Veronica Mars had potential for the first two years, but never had the guts to really do anything edgy.
The Wire is the single best television show in the history of the medium.
There’s also Sledge Hammer if you like that sort of thing.
Personally, I love Veronica Mars. The mysteries are always well-reasoned and Veronica is just a fascinating character. Very capable, but prone to make plenty of mistakes. I like that as compared to the hyper-efficient protaganists of any given procedural currently airing.
Color Me Old School, and formulaic, but…
First couple of seasons of COLLUMBO – which is the closest thing you’ll ever see to a Tex Avery DROOPY cartoon as a 90-min detective show. Oh suuuure, Jack Cassidy or Patrick McGoohan might THINK they’ve gotten away with their fool-proof locked-door mystery, they’ve worked it out to the second; but that mangey police detective keeps asking them QUESTIONS even when they’ve recommended to his superiors that he be taken off the case, even when he shows up at 3 in the morning and charmingly and self-effacingly tells them “I’m a bright guy, not nearly as bright as you are sir… but there’s still one little thing that I don’t understand…”
Watch as Cassidy and McGoohan turn to one door then the other, and no matter where they look, there’s Peter Falk in a trenchcoat with a stain on it and a cigar in his hand saying “HELLOOOO JOE!” Roddy McDowall has one of the best “I can’t believe I’ve been beaten by THIS guy!” break-downs in the history of the show in a cable-car over a mountain valley, some 400 feet up in the air. Watch with glee. Watch as I watch, convinced that (no matter what the spin-off Gods want you to believe) that there actually ISN’T a “Mrs Collumbo” that he continually refers to, but that whenever he mentions “her” he knows he’s talking to the person who did it, and he’s only trying to appear more folksey til they screw themselves up by trying too hard to look innocent.
and
First couple of seasons of ROCKFORD FILES – fully sympathetic private detective who is hated by the police, tolerated by his clients, and 100% human, even as he is almost obligatarily beaten up every episode.
Re: Color Me Old School, and formulaic, but…
When I was on a McGoohan kick a few years back, I sought out the Columbo episodes that he appeared in (and, in a couple cases, also directed). I liked the one that takes place at the military academy quite a lot.
Re: Color Me Old School, and formulaic, but…
Columbo was my favorite show when I was a kid. I was ten or so when it came on, and even at that age I could tell that this was a completely unique detective show, one where they even told you whodunit at the top, and then the rest of the show is watching him catch the guy. Some of my favorite moments in series television take place in the last ten minutes of episodes of Columbo.
Re: Color Me Old School, and formulaic, but…
If you’ve ever seen the original Columbo movie, the formula was started because that one wasn’t telling a regular murder mystery, but actually making the effort to tell it from the killer’s POV. Which kind of got a bit lost when they went to series, by necessity.
Anyway, I join the chorus for Columbo and Monk. I’d also recommend the Mike Hammer shows.
Which one? you ask? The original Stacy Keach run (not the second try of 10 years later) defined Mike Hammer for me (and is kind of the template for my own hardboiled detective, Shaw, in the novel that I’m currently working on), but Darren McGavin was also very good.
Would Kolchak qualify as a mystery/detective show by your standards?
Re: Color Me Old School, and formulaic, but…
COLUMBO, also, as a result, is one of the shows that holds up the best as years go by. I love the fact that people who were notoriously difficult to work with like Russ Martin, Jack Cassidey and Patrick McGoohan would basicly tell their agents to accept *any* COLUMBO scripts that were sent their way – specificly because they loved working with Falk as much as they did.
Oh, and…!
JONATHAN CREEK which has the gimmick of having a male/female crime-solving team played by British comedians ALAN DAVIES and CAROLYN QUENTIN (both of whom have been on “Who’s Line Is It Anyway”) and JULIA SOWALIA (Saffy, the daughter on ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS) who are mismatched like SCULLY/MULDER or the folks from MOONLIGHTING, except that he’s a guy who designs magic tricks for a professional stage magician (played by Anthony “Giles on Buffy” Stewart Head) and who then uses his own escape-artistry and mechanical illusionist mind-set to back-engineer the mysteries that they are required to solve. It’s funny & clever.
Available from A&E, I think, over here in North America.
How about a Sherlock Holmes, who is a genius, sees ghosts, is psychic, has superpowers, is cynical, and has phobias of most things? It’s sickening how most shows start as, let’s have this person who solves crimes- but has one weird thing about them! This weird thing makes them special and the only one who can solve it!
Boomtown which redefines “unique point-of-view.”
and who can’t enjoy some Columbo?
Homicide had terrific writing, characters, and camera work.
Twin Peaks season one was amazing. For a variety of reasons, the show started to meander in S2 after they solved the Laura Palmer murder.
Alot has to do with how a combination works – a kind of feel and format working in the time period and importantly with the main actor. I recently enjoyed reruns of “Johnny Staccato” with John Cassavetes as a kind of period piece- his acting style was in-your-face, more Micky Spillane than noir, but that energy combined with the black and white city, the louder jazz soundtrack and pulp stories.
But yes, I agree with the “Colombo” series. It IS Peter Falk after all. Although there were series like “The Name of the Game” that had detectives like Tony Franciosa and Gene Barry in these more modern formats, “Colombo” appeared and made this new format his. He was a loner who worked for the police force, his “elegance” came from within, rather than appearances. Colombo’s police detective was in contrast to “Rockford Files”, James Garner at his best, (wrongfully?) spent time in prison, who wanted independence or autonomy outside of the police force. “Rockford” perfected the ensemble of characters that shows up in other shows – the combination of being single and having a close relationship with one parent still alive, the divided alliance of a friend on the police force, and one “loose cannon” friend who always shows up at the wrong time (and even integrated with Isaac Hayes).
Also as we edge into the 70s, I didn’t mind the implausible McMillan and Wife either, Nick and Nora updated but good casting.
I think alot of the the later programs before the L&O juggernaut belong to reversing the idea, no main actor, but ensembles that ebb and flow throughout, so police / crime dramas, procedurals.
For TV, “Quincy” actually was not a bad example of a transition between “Colombo”, “Rockford” and “Monk”, a fantasy job but which at least had some sense left – there were showboat forensic examiners back then. “Monk” of course, had a great beginning.
Finally, I also greatly appreciated the English imports like “Poirot” for example, because there, it wasn’t a name actor, but the acting I watched, and embedded within the ridiculously impecabble details of sets and costume that just made the disovery of clues all the more sensual.
As for some of the new programs named, I can’t get past the dumbing down implied (including in L&O) of slim, svelte women all nicely made up and outfitted who are supposed to represent anything in the field of law and order. It’s fantasy more than detective genre.
It might be too fluffy but Jonathan Creek is a good example of an innovative mystery drama.
Some of this may echo earlier comments, so be warned. With all due affection to your actor friend late of NYC, I’ve never been a big fan of police procedurals, especially the CSI/L&O variety. Perhaps all too typical of me, I enjoy things where the cops or the justice system are the villains, or at least woefully misguided. The Fugitive (the series) is by far my favorite thing in this genre, and while it’s not a classic detective story, Janssen typically had to solve (or fight) a crime while simultaneously on the run from the ham-handed, crazily obsessive Detective Gerard. It’s bleak, noir, cool…and causes you to question the system. All things I love.
More classically a cop show, but with enough quirk to keep your average interested, Paul Haggis’ Due South centered on a RCMP officer (a “mountie” in full uniform, etc) who teamed up with a Chicago cop, originally to find his father’s killer. The chemistry/tension between the leads is excellent, and it has touches of Twin Peaks as well as a sort of Brisco County feel to it at times. I’m a huge fan. One of my favorite TV shows ever. It’s too bad Haggis never found work again.
Route 66–like The Fugitive–was not a detective show per se, but I recommend it (in fact, it figured into my last script). Two guys traveling across country in a race car, becoming entangled in an amazingly dark world of local crime and mysteries and social issues. More fun than I’m making it sound.
Somebody earlier mentioned the BBC’s Life On Mars and I strongly recommend it. It centers on a modern-day detective named Sam Tyler, who’s investigating a string of serial murders, is struck by a car and finds himself back in 1973…solving a string of murders. Whether he’s dead, in a coma, back in time, or whatever else, has not been established. Grittier than it sounds, very authentic, and a great dynamic between Sam’s 2007-style police work (technology, ethics, rule of law, etc) and his 1973 boss, DCI Gene Hunt, whose methods are brutal and whose only ethical compass is his own gut. Plenty of fun, too. I understand they’re doing a US adaption, which would horrify me if I didn’t love the US The Office so much.
Kyle MacLachlan did a series last year (or was it the year before?) called Injustice, which was about a team of investigators trying to get wrongfully convicted people off death row. I liked it quite a bit, again because of the whole justice-system-is-unjust angle. America did not share my enthusiasm.
Columbo and Rockford Files are favorites. The Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes Mysteries are very good. Helen Mirren’s Prime Suspect is outstanding, as much for her acting and the way her character’s written (unbelievably flawed anti-hero cop) as anything to do with the actual crime of the week.
Moonlighting was my favorite 80s detective show, but again, I favor snappy 30s banter over actual mystery/crime solving.
There’s always Lookwell, of course.
If you’re familiar with The Fugitive and Route 66, are you perchance familiar with Run For Your Life, starring Ben Gazzara as a man with six months (or something) to live, who travels the world running into people with problems, hoping to find a cure for whatever it is he’s got?
I’ve never seen that, but it sounds like something I’d like a lot. I’ll seek it out.
Yes, saw it. Despite sounding smart for the time, and another Cassavettes troupe member at work, it doesn’t really manage to find it’s own personality, in the way Route 66 did for example. A slooowww, black and white, downer, leaden feeling really. Maybe the directing failed, but in general, it was hard to understand what is it exactly that the protagonist is chasing after this week, so that makes it hard to identify with as well from other shows where someone just walks into town and into the middle of some plot contrivance already underway (From “Palladin” to “Then Came Bronson” and forever)
There’s always Lookwell, of course.
There is, indeed. Robert Smigel + Conan O’Brien + Adam West = Genius.
Good call on House. Season 3 is one of the strongest seasons of anything, with David Morse playing a genuine nemesis for House. Great stuff.
Homicide is probably the best police procedure shows. I really must watch The Shield. I have been hearing amazing things about it since the beginning.
I always thought Murder 1 was one of the best procedural/mystery shows I ever saw, but that is with lawyers. Nothing Ally McBeal about it at all. Stanley Tucci is on fire as the did-he-didnt-he suspect.
Prime Suspect with Helen Mirran is amazing too.
Project U.F.O.
Back in 1978, NBC aired 26 episodes of Jack Webb’s “Project U.F.O.”, a dramatization of some of the declassified reports in the Air Force’s Project Blue Book. Two actors played Air Force officers that went around the country investigating UFO sightings. Most of them were found to be hoaxes, but a few were classified as unknown. The show was produced by the former head of the real Project Blue Book. Even though I don’t recall ever seeing reruns or DVDs of this show, I still recall a few details from various episodes.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077065/
http://www.rense.com/politics6/ufotv.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_UFO
Best Detective Show Ever: The Prisoner.
How about the old Phillip Marlow featuring Powes Boothe?
It’s been a quite some time since I’ve seen it, but the Philip Marlowe series featuring Powers Boothe seemed to be a pretty good when it aired (on HBO, I think) and it is available on DVD, if that’s a consideration.
Did anyone mention the Inspector Morse series that used to run on Mystery? Or Cracker featuring Robbie Coltrane which I think ran on Mystery as well.
Back in the day I loved to watch Vega$, Mannix, and Barnaby Jones with my folks. As a young kid I remember them all to be excellent shows, although I don’t know if the adult me would agree.
These days I’d recommend catching re-runs of Davinci’s Inquest (mayhem and grittiness on the streets of Vancouver), or wait for the next season of Life on Mars on BBC America.
A Couple Others
Clive Owen was pretty good and added a twist to the police procedural in Second Sight.
And I know it’s a bit nerdy, but I did enjoy G vs. E when it was on. Agents of god going out to dispose of demons and the like. Entertaining stuff.
Does anyone remember “The Immortal”? 1970-ish “The Fugitive/Run For Your Life” type starring Christopher George as a race car driver who never aged, healed instantly and had blood that could cure people’s illnesses? I don’t remember all of the details; just that the guy hired to capture him for his special blood and the rich guy who hired him were incredibly cold and interesting. Looked for it on DVD to no avail.
Murder She Wrote
Ok. Yes. I know. Stop slagging me… I used to watch this every week with my mom when I was younger. We both loved the mystery element, and regularly tried to solve the case during the last advert break. I still love watching reruns, and trying to piece together the clues as the episode goes on. And that’s the best thing about the show! Jessica only uses knowledge and clues that the audience have seen! Nothing is ever pulled out of the air. It’s all there if you just look for it.
J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, Rising Stars, Amazing Spider-Man, in case you don’t know the name!) has admitted that his time spent on that show is where he learned all about fore-shadowing and clever hint-dropping! What more of a recommendation do you need. And I see there is at least the first season available on DVD now, so it’s there to watch!
Denis
Suddenly Very Tempted To Rush Out And Buy Season One!!
http://oneterrificday.blogspot.com/
Prime Suspect
Prime Suspect is more of a series of mini-serieses. It’s british, and acted Masterfully by Helen Mirran in the lead about a detective chasing some very believable murderers. It’s grim, dark, pessimistic drama. It’s probably the highest brow thing that ITV (England’s answer to FOX) has done, and can make some of the BBC’s output look trashy by comparison.
I figure I should mention it because it’s critically well thought of… so I submit it for completeness’ sake.