Quietly depressing landscapes, lonely tortured detectives, English accents, aged scotch, trench coats galore, these are just a few reasons I so enjoy a good British detective series.

In a faraway land that is always damp, grey skies hanging overhead with expanses of green rolling hills or empty shores along a dark cold sea envelope me in a false sense of calm. Tiny cars driving down long single lane roads lined with ancient stone walls headed to a crime scene where someone was strangled or stabbed or poisoned or drowned or bludgeoned or burned to death, but rarely shot, fill me with a delicious, slow moving dread.

And once I get a taste of a series that I like, I can’t get enough of it.

The first British detective series I became addicted to was Wallander (the one starring Kenneth Branagh and Tom Hiddleston–he left after season 2). I know there are other versions, but this is the only one I’ve watched. The only one I will ever want to watch.

Tortured, lonely, disconnected from his family, probably about to lose his job, not to mention trying to deal with his hard lined artist father who is deteriorating from Alzheimers. And then the murder mystery part on top of it all. This is s good show.

And the cinematography. The emptiness and emotional desolation. The beautiful shots of what appears to be nowhere and nothing. The visual symbolism they carry throughout every show and every season. It’s so well done.

I also watched Broadchurch with David Tennant. Although that one was so damned good I had to stop watching it. So intense! The acting is incredible. Sometimes I can’t keep on with a show if it gets to me too well. I can’t relax and watch it, it’s too upsetting.

My most recent love affair is with Vera. The lady DCI with “caustic wit and singular charm” is sweet and sad and smart all at once. I love how she calls everyone “Pet” and drinks too much. She makes me wish I would have become a detective, which never would have worked because I couldn’t have made it through being the police officer part.

The thing that really sucks me into these shows is the way everything is so picturesque, like you’re looking at postcard or you’re wandering through a museum, and then WAMMO! Someone’s dead, and the only person who can figure it out is this troubled soul who has been doing the job for too long.

It’s fascinating.

If you’re into that kind of thing 😉

– Darci