Passion: Watching the detectives - why crime drama kills reality TV every time
Reality TV is all very well, but even when someone’s allegedly breaking a rib (Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins), crawling from the wreckage of their relationship in a doomed counselling session (Couples Therapy) or Stacey Solomon and her stormtroopers have filled an aircraft hangar with a family’s bits and bobs so they can get space to put up a shelf - it gets a bit staid, a bit tame and domestic. That’s why this autumn I’ll be trawling the channels in search of some crime drama, something a bit edgy. I’ll be watching the detectives…
I’m not so interested in real life crime as the fictional variety. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation can be tortuously slow, despite the leaps in forensics, and leave too many unanswered questions. Much more satisfying is when fictional detectives catch the killer and tie up cases neatly, sending you to bed knowing the perp is behind bars and that they and their funny hat/raincoat/empty fridge/personality disorder will be back next episode keeping the streets/beaches/vicarage safe.
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Hide AdThe new series of Annika with Nicola Walker and Jamie Sives doesn’t disappoint, catching a killer with her team in every episode. No matter that there’s no such thing as a Marine Homicide Unit on the Clyde when there are zippy inflatable boats cutting up the lochs and glorious mountainous backdrops to enjoy along with DI Strandhed’s diverting literary obsessions, from Walter Scott to George Orwell. Whodunnit? Whydunnit? Who cares? Just buckle up and enjoy the ride.
Or there’s Dougray Scott as the brilliantly volatile DI Ray Lennox in season two of Irvine Welsh’s Crime, wrestling with more demons than The Edinburgh Dungeon and excavating the capital’s ugly underbelly while its beautifully cinematic alter ego turns it on for the camera - and there’s even dark humour too.
And how about the bonus of not one but two female telly tecs tearing about in tandem in the new Shetland, now that Dougie Henshall’s hung up his peacoat and will no longer be gazing watery-eyed out to sea as the gale hits him full in the face. As new arrival DI Calder (Ashley Jensen) from the Met teams up with DI Tosh (Alison O’Donnell), it’s cashmere and gangland meets all-weather wear and islander insider intel as they attack the islands’ outrageously high body count. There’s nothing better than a cold blooded crime series to warm up a cosy night on the sofa. I’ll be filing my nails while they’re dragging the loch.