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usedtobeljsRecently I've been thinking a lot about detectives -- in TV and books, mostly.
There are certain idiosyncratic truths: I'm less interested in hardboiled than in the more cozy British-Golden-Age types; even so, the really uber-twee cozies of the past decade or so are not to my taste. I'm also less interested in police detectives in books although I'm usually in favor of them in TV series. I prefer series to standalones.
But what I realize is that for me, there are two tiers of detective series. The second tier is where I'm invested in the detectives but I'm not hugely invested in the mysteries themselves. This could be anything from Deanna Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell book series, where I happily follow Veronica and Stoker (and my darling Tiberius) but the actual crime-solving bits are very hit-or-miss for me, to my current nighttime viewing of Series One of 2012's The Tunnel.
I adore Stephen Dillane as Karl Roebuck, rumpled, sarky mensch albeit with one fatal flaw (about as faithful in love as a tomcat, c'mon, Karl, get it together), and I'm thoroughly enjoying Clemence Poesy as his French counterpart/sometime detecting partner Elyse, cool, bisexual, and on the spectrum. My heart belongs to detective pairs in love, but in this case I actually am delighted by Karl and Elyse's friendship which has absolutely no sexual tension whatsoever.
The first series, however, has an ongoing Big Bad mystery with smaller mysteries set up by the villain, and...I find it hard to care. Stuff's happening, fine, but let's get back to Karl and Elyse.
The top tier of detective series for me is where I do care about both the detective(s) and the mysteries. My personal gold standard is the Wimsey novels with the exception of The Five Red Herrings and, sadly, The Nine Tailors. I'd say the first two series of Sherlock hit this top tier for me in four of the six episodes. (The less said about "The Blind Banker," the better, even though Bertie Carvel's in it.) Weirdly, too, the original run of The X-Files works for me with the Monster of the Week episodes, less so with the myth-arc stuff.
(Of course, if you look at my ficcing, from Giles/Anya on, it's detecting and spies all the way, so...)
Do you have a favorite detective series? I hope you get to spend time with it soon. :)
There are certain idiosyncratic truths: I'm less interested in hardboiled than in the more cozy British-Golden-Age types; even so, the really uber-twee cozies of the past decade or so are not to my taste. I'm also less interested in police detectives in books although I'm usually in favor of them in TV series. I prefer series to standalones.
But what I realize is that for me, there are two tiers of detective series. The second tier is where I'm invested in the detectives but I'm not hugely invested in the mysteries themselves. This could be anything from Deanna Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell book series, where I happily follow Veronica and Stoker (and my darling Tiberius) but the actual crime-solving bits are very hit-or-miss for me, to my current nighttime viewing of Series One of 2012's The Tunnel.
I adore Stephen Dillane as Karl Roebuck, rumpled, sarky mensch albeit with one fatal flaw (about as faithful in love as a tomcat, c'mon, Karl, get it together), and I'm thoroughly enjoying Clemence Poesy as his French counterpart/sometime detecting partner Elyse, cool, bisexual, and on the spectrum. My heart belongs to detective pairs in love, but in this case I actually am delighted by Karl and Elyse's friendship which has absolutely no sexual tension whatsoever.
The first series, however, has an ongoing Big Bad mystery with smaller mysteries set up by the villain, and...I find it hard to care. Stuff's happening, fine, but let's get back to Karl and Elyse.
The top tier of detective series for me is where I do care about both the detective(s) and the mysteries. My personal gold standard is the Wimsey novels with the exception of The Five Red Herrings and, sadly, The Nine Tailors. I'd say the first two series of Sherlock hit this top tier for me in four of the six episodes. (The less said about "The Blind Banker," the better, even though Bertie Carvel's in it.) Weirdly, too, the original run of The X-Files works for me with the Monster of the Week episodes, less so with the myth-arc stuff.
(Of course, if you look at my ficcing, from Giles/Anya on, it's detecting and spies all the way, so...)
Do you have a favorite detective series? I hope you get to spend time with it soon. :)
