What's your favourite detective/police TV show?

I love Foyle's war, it is nostalgic and above all slow paced,with none of the loud background music which spoils so many shows these days.

Oh, and who can forget Columbo, the earlier 1970s runs, rather than the later versions.

Can't decide between Midsomer Murders and Rosemary & Thyme, although I have been watching Murder She Wrote lately

Oh, and who can forget 'Taggart'?

I like Banks DCI but still can't see Stephen Tompinkson as anyone but Damien Day

Motive is my current favourite. Things like SVU are just too relentlessly miserable. Luther is also very good, although equally miserable. Death in paradise is big on fluff but nice to watch when it's freezing outside.

The first series of True Detective was seriously miserable, but also brilliant. The second series was nothing like as good IMO.

Happy Valley was another good one, as was Line of Duty.

I like Banks DCI but still can't see Stephen Tompinkson as anyone but Damien Day

He played an Irish dentist in an episode of Radio 4's Poirot. It was still Damien Day doing a bit of a dodgy accent.

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My favourite is Morse. I like ITV's Poirot, and the early episodes of Midsomer Murders, but it really does have to be Morse. Early episodes of Lewis are good too, and Endeavour is excellent (Shaun Evans is perfect as the young Morse), but both suffer occasionally from barking mad plots and overwrought story-telling.

Of the US offerings, the first five seasons of The Mentalist are superb, especially if you prefer wit to grit.

The first series of True Detective was seriously miserable, but also brilliant. The second series was nothing like as good IMO.

 

Happy Valley was another good one, as was Line of Duty.

I'd criminally forgotten about true detective - one of my all time faves.

...I have been watching Murder She Wrote lately

I was watching that on Netflix before it was most rudely cut off. Now I have a box set of the first five seasons .

Cracker, the best of the lot, past or present:thumbsup::thumbsup:

Cracker, the best of the lot, past or present:thumbsup::thumbsup:

I've never seen it. But oddly I have caught an episode of the US version which is almost a carbon copy of it.

The Robert Carlyle episode is said to be amazing. He's a football hooligan or something?

---------- Post added 10-09-2016 at 13:43 ----------

I'd criminally forgotten about true detective - one of my all time faves.

I've watched both and enjoyed both but I can't say I loved them.

Does Fargo count? That's great.

But the best, by a long, long way, peerless in its breadth and scope, a monumental, towering achievement of TV, without equal is The Bill. Just kidding, The Wire.

Cracker, the best of the lot, past or present:thumbsup::thumbsup:

Cracker has aged quite badly and, I think, rarely gets repeated these days. It was excellent TV - proper discuss it excitedly next day stuff - and the acting was superb, but it was stylish in that typically 90s sort of way that makes it very much of its time. The couple of attempts to update it with new episodes didn't work at all, as I recall, and the ratings and reviews were quite poor.

---------- Post added 10-09-2016 at 14:21 ----------

...The Robert Carlyle episode is said to be amazing. He's a football hooligan or something?

It was a three-parter. This is a good piece on that story and Carlyle's character. He was magnificent; the role was his big break.