{"id":10196,"date":"2025-10-08T00:06:46","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T07:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/?p=10196"},"modified":"2025-10-08T00:07:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T07:07:18","slug":"mystery-shows-im-watching-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/2025\/10\/mystery-shows-im-watching-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery shows I’m watching now"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some of us like a good TV mystery. For others of us, it’s an addiction.<\/p>\n

\"\"As one of this latter group, however, I am also an exception. I almost never figure out who the murderer is, and sometimes I don’t even try. This is despite the fact that I write mysteries myself, and have been reading and watching them for half a century, sometimes more than once.<\/p>\n

I watched 24 seasons of Midsomer Murders<\/em> and guessed the murderer only twice. I saw The Mousetrap<\/em> in London three times before I remembered whodunnit.<\/p>\n

Is this stupidity? An ignorance of plot structure? An indication of incipient memory problems? Perhaps, but I prefer to think that I get caught up in really good narratives and interesting characters.<\/p>\n

This is also strange, since I get impatient with stories, especially dramas, especially these days.\u00a0 To fit with contemporary themes, what the characters feel about things is more important than what they think. Popular detectives have dark or tragic personal backgrounds (Jimmy Perez in Shetland<\/em>), inappropriately intervene in the lives of others (Rapha\u00eblle in Astrid<\/em>), are considered outsiders (Oskar Reinhardt in Vienna Blood<\/em>), and use their life experiences to inform their work (Candice Renoir).<\/p>\n

However they may be portrayed in a contemporary setting, the characteristics themselves are far from new. Sherlock Holmes was addicted to cocaine. Maigret melded into the background. Columbo got lost in the pockets of his coat. Miss Marple and Jessica Fletcher were incorrigible busybodies.\u00a0 By today’s layman’s definition, all of them were neurodivergent. But I can ignore the popular motifs, especially since solving the mystery requires a certain amount of cognitive ability, no matter how much the story tries to manipulate my feelings.<\/p>\n

So here is my current list of recent mystery shows good enough that you don’t need to know who did the deed. And because I don’t like violence, they are all cozies or cozy-adjacent. And because I don’t have cable, they are all on PBS, Britbox, or Acorn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\nSherlock and Daughter<\/strong> (2025) is better than it sounds in the Wikipedia description<\/a>. While the portrayal of the American daughter is marred by 21st century intonalities and language, the story, David Thewlis’s performance as Holmes, and the production design make it worth watching.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/td>\nMademoiselle Holmes<\/strong> (2024-now) is a French program currently on PBS, featuring a (yes) neurodivergent, intelligent policewoman who gets in an accident that changes her brain and makes her confident in her brilliance. She also happens to be the granddaughter of Sherlock Holmes. Highlights include gender role reversals and the first detective I’ve seen who’s sexually healthy. There’s an excellent review of the show at Sherlock Adjacent<\/a>.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/td>\nThe Chelsea Detective<\/strong> (2022-now) is harder to pin down in terms of character. Max Arnold, played by Adrian Scarborough, is quietly intelligent and introverted. The character continually threatens to be uninteresting, and his bland personal life is of little help. Nevertheless, it is absorbing, and the exuberant presence of Frances Barber<\/a> as his aunt doesn’t hurt.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/td>\nSister Boniface<\/strong> (2023-now) – originally a character in the Father Brown series (2013-now). Like Murdoch, and Holmes, she uses scientific methods to solve crime. There is no attempt at deeper backstory or character development, which is refreshing.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/td>\nOnly Murders in the Building<\/strong> (2021-now) is tops in the creative, uncomfortable, twisty but not gory category. You can read about the story<\/a>, but I actually found the characters best described in a cool video about the production design<\/a>.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Enjoy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of us like a good TV mystery. For others of us, it’s an addiction. As one of this latter group, however, I am also an exception. I almost never figure out who the murderer is, and sometimes I don’t even try. This is despite the fact that I write mysteries myself, and have been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10196"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10217,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10196\/revisions\/10217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}