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[Re-release] Mysteries on TV
216 Plays11 months ago
This is a re-release of an episode originally published on January 17, 2023. As with books, mystery is one of the most popular television genres. In today’s episode, Brook and Sarah discuss some of their favorite TV shows.
Shows mentioned in this episode:
Agatha Christie's Poirot (1989-2013) BBC
Columbo (1968-1978; 1989-2003) NBC and ABC
Murder She Wrote (1984-1996) USA Network
Midsomer Murders (1997-2023) ITV
Law & Order (1990-2023) NBC
The X-Files (1993-2018) Fox
Doctor Who (1963-2023)
Telecrime (1938-1946) BBC
Quincy (1976-1983) NBC
House (2004-2012) Fox
The Practice (1997-2004) NBC
Magnum PI (1980-1988)
Moonlighting (1985-1989) ABC
Wednesday (2022) Netflix
Veronica Mars (2004-2019) The WB
Da Vinci’s Inquest (1998-2006) CBC
Miss Scarlet and the Duke (2020-2023) PBS
Shetland (2013-2023) BBC
Wallander (2008-2016) BBC
Slow Horses (2022-2023) Apple TV
Inspector Morse (1987-2000) ITV
Lewis (2006-2015) ITV
Endeavour (2012-2023) ITV
Only Murders in the Building (2021-2023) Hulu
Spooks (2002-2011) BBC
The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window (2022) Netflix
For more information
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Transcript
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Transcript
Introduction and Break Announcement
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, it's Sarah. Brooke and I are taking a short break from recording new episodes to catch up on our reading lists and plan for the next season of Clued in Mystery. While we're off, we are re-releasing a few of our favourite episodes. We hope you enjoy.
Mystery Enthusiast Introductions
00:00:23
Speaker
Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke. And we both love mystery. Hi, Brooke. Hi, Sarah. How are you doing today? I'm great. Thank you. How are you? I'm great. It's always good to talk to you about mysteries. I can't wait.
History of TV Mysteries
00:00:40
Speaker
And today we're talking about a bit of a departure from what we've been talking about in previous episodes. We're talking about mysteries on TV today. That's right.
00:00:51
Speaker
Yeah, so not only is mystery one of the most popular genres in books, it's also one of the top picks for television viewers. Some of the longest running TV series ever reside in the category. Some examples are Poirot, Columbo, Murder She Wrote, Midsummer Murders, Law and Order, The X-Files, and Doctor Who. Only soap operas beat mystery in the list of longest running series.
00:01:19
Speaker
The very first mystery show to hit TV was called Telecrime. It was a British drama series by the BBC and started in 1938 and initially ran for just one year due to the beginning of World War II. But it resumed again in 1946 for a total of 17 episodes.
00:01:39
Speaker
It was one of the first multi-episode drama series ever made, and it also was one of the first TV dramas written specifically for television not adapted from a theater or radio presentation. It was a whodunit crime drama, and it honored the notion of fair play that we've discussed before.
00:01:58
Speaker
because it showed the viewer enough evidence in each episode to solve the crime themselves if they were paying close enough attention. Unfortunately, all 17 episodes have been lost to time because the show aired live and technology to preserve live shows had not been perfected. The crime dramas we love today are still based on that classic whodunit style detailed in telecrime and then made world famous in the boom of the 1950s and 60s
00:02:28
Speaker
with popular shows such as Dragnet, Policewoman, and I Spy. Honestly, when we start to think about all the TV mysteries we've loved over the years, the list seems endless and ever-growing.
Modern Mystery TV Renaissance
00:02:43
Speaker
In fact, the 2020s are proving to be a time of renaissance for mystery TV.
00:02:49
Speaker
A recent article by Crime Reads listed their favorites from 2022, and Sarah and I had to admit that we hadn't heard of most of them, letting us know that we will never run short of great mystery shows to watch. Just like the subgenres of mystery books we've discussed over multiple episodes of the podcast, the topic of TV mysteries will surely stretch into many conversations.
00:03:14
Speaker
But today, we'll share some of our all-time favorite shows, what we've enjoyed watching lately, and talk about what we think makes a great TV mystery series. Oh, thanks for that, Brooke. I had never heard of telecrime before, and I'm so disappointed that no episodes remain, because it sounds like it was pretty neat. So recorded live, written specifically for TV. It was probably, yeah.
00:03:43
Speaker
I had never heard of it either and was very impressed because I think that obviously my television history is a little skewed because I couldn't believe that there were television shows being produced in 38 and 39. So yeah, really fascinating.
00:04:01
Speaker
And as you say, the list of excellent mystery shows is quite long. And I was thinking about this. Kind of like when I'm reading, I also do a bit of mood watching, right? So sometimes I'll watch something that I know is a little bit over the top, a little bit campy, but it's, you know,
00:04:28
Speaker
not gonna be too heavy and then sometimes I'll choose to watch something that is you know a little grittier and a little there's a lot that viewers can can choose from and and just like when you're reading books there's kind of something for everyone I think.
Reading vs Watching Mysteries
00:04:44
Speaker
Definitely. Yeah. And hits a lot of the same subgenres that we've talked about, right? You know, there's the spies, there's the police procedurals, there's the medical mysteries. There definitely, or like you say, more the cozy campy mysteries, there's
00:04:59
Speaker
there's just really so much variety. And I was thinking that, you know, with the soap operas actually outliving, some of the soap operas are 50 or 60 years running. But there are a lot of those drama elements in those long running mystery
00:05:17
Speaker
series as well. So I think that where those two genres intersect where you have maybe the overarching story involved with mystery as well is where you have those series that are just enduring and become favorites for years and years.
00:05:36
Speaker
I was reflecting on this a little bit about what I watch versus what I read, and there is definitely some overlap, but there are some things that I watch more of rather than read. So the heavier, grittier stuff, I will watch that more than I will read that.
00:05:58
Speaker
And I think domestic thrillers, I tend to be more comfortable reading rather than watching, although I have watched some. And certainly if I've read the book, then if there's a series based on it or a movie, then I'll watch that.
00:06:15
Speaker
But I probably re-watch, sorry, I probably watch more of the lighter, cozier, campier shows than read, which I think is really interesting.
00:06:28
Speaker
It is interesting. I think that I have similar patterns. It's funny because I can remember as a really young kid, my dad always watched the show Quincy, which was actually aired in Canada first, and then it came to the US. And it was kind of like an early house. It was a forensic. It was medical, right? Yeah, like a forensic. He was maybe a coroner or a
00:06:56
Speaker
medical examiner and there was these mysteries that he was solving the way the person died. And I don't know if it's because I watched those so young with him or if it's just a matter of taste, but I will really get into like a forensic TV mystery, but that's not something that I would pick up as a book. So I can see some of those preferences in myself as well.
Nostalgia in Mystery TV
00:07:24
Speaker
I feel like I do probably more TV shows that are also set in the courtroom, like A Law and Order, or another show I liked a lot was The Practice, more so on TV than I would read in books as well. So that's really interesting, the way we kind of divide those up. It is interesting. And I smiled when you were talking about your dad watching Quincy.
00:07:54
Speaker
I remember my dad watched Magnum PI when that came out. So that was, I think, in the early 80s, right? It's been a long time, but I don't know if I could watch an episode of that now because of the way that television mystery has evolved. Like revisiting some of those older shows, I think we have some nostalgia for, but I'm not sure if they stand the test of time.
00:08:22
Speaker
I have to say, I haven't watched a Magnum PI episode, so maybe it does down the test of time. They did reboot it, I think, but I didn't watch any of the reboot. Definitely, I think Magnum PI was probably the first of the television mysteries that I was exposed to. Well, it's funny you should say that because when all the streaming opportunities came along,
00:08:45
Speaker
a series that I was just absolutely in love with. I was probably too young to be watching it, but because moonlighting is the series and it ran from 85 to 89. So that put me in like
00:09:00
Speaker
fifth, sixth grade when it came about. And of course, there's a lot of romantic tension going on. But anyway, I loved it. I loved the banter. I loved the mysteries. And so when the streaming opportunities came along in the last few years, I'm like, this is awesome. I can rewatch moonlighting. This is going to be great. And I literally got through two episodes. And
00:09:24
Speaker
I had this thought like, it's ruining it for me. It's completely ruining the fond memories because it's really, you know, like you say, it just hasn't stood the test of time. Now, definitely you can still, I think, as a storyteller, look at the way they constructed the episodes as far as like the story arc and the solution to the crime, the way they dropped the clues.
00:09:51
Speaker
The witty banter is still somewhat fun, but it's kind of hard to go back and watch those 1980s TV shows, I'll agree.
00:10:00
Speaker
So you in the introduction mentioned X-Files, which I had on my list as something that I enjoyed watching, you know, mystery themed.
Paranormal Mysteries
00:10:13
Speaker
And that's another example of something that I don't read a lot of, like kind of the paranormal mysteries, but I loved the X-Files.
00:10:23
Speaker
Partly, I think, because it was filmed in Vancouver, the first few seasons were filmed in Vancouver, and I will watch almost anything that's filmed in Vancouver. So I was in high school, I think, when that came out, and I just absolutely loved it.
00:10:42
Speaker
Um, and then since then there's, you know, some other sort of paranormal, um, mysteries that I've enjoyed. So, um, I zombie, which was, it was actually based on a comic, um, also filmed in Vancouver. Um, and, uh, but it, so that is a bit paranormal, right? She's a, she's a zombie, um, solving mysteries. Um, but it's also, I think a bit.
00:11:08
Speaker
targeted at a younger audience. Like it's a bit more YA if you were putting it in a book category. Yeah. I'm like you. I don't read much paranormal, but we'll watch it in a series. And you know, I have to reference the currently popular Wednesday. Like that probably wouldn't have been a storyline that would have been appealing to me in a book.
00:11:38
Speaker
It was a really fun show that has that paranormal solution to it, which, again, isn't going to be something that I really love in my fiction reading, but it's fun on TV. And part of that has to have a part to play in the visualness of it, I think, you know, when you can see it on the screen and you have the special effects. I mean, that just adds to the experience for me.
00:12:03
Speaker
Yeah, so I haven't watched Wednesday, but I think it's something that I probably would enjoy. Is it targeted at a younger audience? Because Wednesday obviously is a younger character. I would classify it as a YA mystery. Yeah, all the characters are predominantly high school aged kids.
00:12:31
Speaker
I am going to go out on a limb, so I will wait and see what you think after you watch it because to me, it's a reboot of Veronica Mars. It's the goth girl Veronica Mars. And of course Veronica Mars did not have any paranormal elements, but when you put the goth in the Addams family in, then that's where that
00:12:55
Speaker
comes together. But we've got the outcast girl, the snarky remarks, obviously very intelligent. Even the first episode where Veronica saves the boy from the bullies, we have Wednesday saving her brother Pugsley from
00:13:16
Speaker
a bunch of bullies. I mean, there's, there's a lot of similarities to me. So after you get a chance to watch it, we'll have to do a comparison conversation, Sarah. Okay, definitely. Cause I loved Veronica Mars. Um, and, uh, I have rewatched some of some of that cause I just, I thought it was so, so excellent.
00:13:37
Speaker
Did you end up watching, in 2019, they did a reboot, and Kristen Bell was in it apparently, but I have not watched it. Have you watched the new season? Yes. Yeah, it was good. So it set about a decade after the third of the original seasons, or maybe it's a decade after the movie, I can't remember. But yeah, I did watch that.
00:14:05
Speaker
I looked up, because I wasn't sure if Veronica Mars was based originally on books or if it was written for TV. And I think it was written for TV, but there were a couple of books that were written
00:14:20
Speaker
by the show creator as part of the, he considers them canon as part of the show. So I haven't read those books, but I might go back and maybe start Veronica Mars again and then read the books kind of where he thinks they belong. But yeah, I
00:14:45
Speaker
I definitely, Veronica Mars is one of my favorite of the mystery TV shows. Yeah. And I feel like it, much like I feel like we're in a little bit of a mystery renaissance right now with film and TV. I feel like that was also a kickoff of another one. You know, it brought a lot of kids into the genre because it was
00:15:09
Speaker
In my opinion, probably one of the first YA
YA Mysteries and Veronica Mars
00:15:12
Speaker
mystery shows. I don't remember anything before where the sleuth was a teenager on television. I mean, I guess we have Scooby-Doo, which I reference probably too often. But I think that it really brought a whole new generation into the idea of amateur sleuths and solving crime. So it was a great, great series.
00:15:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think I think you're probably right. And, you know, Veronica Mars is a bit of a evolution from Nancy Drew. Yes. Right. Very true. And I know there was a Nancy Drew TV show a couple of years ago, but it might not have been the first. I'm sure there was other Nancy Drew
00:16:02
Speaker
TV, uh, TV episodes. Um, but I'm not sure. I only watched actually one or two of the, um, the more recent version. And I can't remember why that was, but I think there's also a Hardy Boys show, but I haven't seen that. And I think we should do at some point a whole episode on Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys.
00:16:21
Speaker
One show that I wanted to mention was a show called Da Vinci's Inquest. So it's a corner investigating deaths, and it's actually based on an actual
00:16:38
Speaker
corner. So again, it's set in Vancouver, it's filmed in Vancouver. And yeah, the series was done by CBC, which is our national broadcaster. And I don't know, I actually didn't get a chance to look up to see if it's available on streaming. And it may be streaming outside of Canada, because I think there's, you know, often some different options depending on where you're living.
00:17:03
Speaker
But I really enjoyed that. So it was in the, I'm gonna say late 90s, early 2000s that it was on. And so in real life, this coroner ran for mayor and became the mayor of Vancouver.
00:17:21
Speaker
And in the show they had a parallel thing happen where the coroner ran for mayor and became the mayor and so then they did a whole other, I think it was only one or two seasons but it was called Da Vinci's City Hall and it was more about
00:17:38
Speaker
him being mayor. I don't think I've actually seen any of those, so I don't know if those have a mystery element as well, but certainly the Da Vinci's inquest definitely had a mystery element and I really enjoyed that.
Real-life Narratives in TV Mysteries
00:17:56
Speaker
That is just fascinating. I don't know that I can think of any other examples
00:18:01
Speaker
where a fictional TV show is that intertwined with real life. So that is great. I would love to know what his opinion of the show was. Yeah, you know what? I don't know. I'm sure we could look it up. I feel like the Brits do a really great job on mystery television shows.
British Mysteries Praise
00:18:22
Speaker
And one that is very contemporary and current that I'll just reference is the Miss Scarlet series that I believe started in 2020.
00:18:31
Speaker
And it's just so well done, so exactly what you would expect from an amazing PBS series. And so if you haven't checked out Miss Scarlet, it's a great mystery series that I think that you would love. I haven't seen that. I don't think I've even heard of it, which kind of goes back to what you were saying at the beginning that there's just so much. And in that crime reads article, there were a bunch that I hadn't encountered.
00:19:01
Speaker
But I agree, I think there's some really great shows that come out of the UK, and there's several that are based on books, so Shetland or Wallander.
00:19:17
Speaker
Um, as well as, uh, so this is a spy series that is, um, uh, on Apple TV called slow horses. Um, and so that was actually something that we watched over the, the Christmas break, um, was the second season of that. And I think it's excellent.
00:19:36
Speaker
And then just even Midsomer Murders, which I think is, you know, it's pretty light, but that, you know, English village, people dropping dead around you kind of.
00:19:53
Speaker
So I thought, you know, I really enjoy Midsummer Murders, and there's a lot of episodes of that. As well as Morse and the spinoff of that, Lewis, and then the spinoff of that, Endeavor, which are all based, well, Morse is based on a series of books. And, you know, I think those are pretty great to watch as well.
00:20:19
Speaker
Yeah, and those would be new to
Impact of Streaming on Mystery TV
00:20:21
Speaker
me. I think one thing that is really expanding that is all the different platforms like you referenced Apple TV and they know you might have Netflix productions and Hulu is making shows and the list goes on and on. So that really opens up writers and producers to make all these different series. So the
00:20:43
Speaker
the smorgasbord is there for the taking. It's no wonder that we haven't heard of some of these because it's growing by leaps and bounds. Oh, totally. It's hard as a viewer to keep up with it. I mean, I only have so much time that I can sit down and watch something anyway, right? And another example of that is only murders in the building. Yes.
00:21:10
Speaker
which I finally get to partake in because I have officially got my Hulu subscription. So that is something that I actually thought I was going to start over Christmas break, but it's it's still coming and I cannot wait. I've seen the first episode and it's going to just be fantastic, I can tell that. And, you know, so many things come down to characters for me and the three of them as an ensemble cast just
00:21:38
Speaker
It just seems great. Yeah, I think you'll love it. And I look forward to talking about it with you because that, I think, if I had to pick, would probably be one of my favorites of the more recent series that's been released. I think, yeah, it's excellent. And I hope that there's going to be another season because, as you say, the three of them, they do so well together.
00:22:08
Speaker
And I love the idea of bringing back some of these, you know, classic actors, people who maybe haven't been, you know, Martin Short and Steve Martin maybe haven't been doing TV for many, many years and then in bringing them back in something like this and having it be such a success. It's just kind of heartwarming. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I have one other recommendation, and this is spy, you know, in the spy genre.
00:22:37
Speaker
and also comes out of the UK. And that is Spooks. And I can't remember, I think in the UK it may have aired as MI5, but over here it was available to stream as Spooks, I think. And so it is, as the name suggests, about spies. And so it's that international spy thriller and spy craft. And it's largely set domestically, but there's obviously
00:23:05
Speaker
some international characters who are involved and I really enjoyed that. Yeah, that sounds great. You are our spy mystery expert on the show because you really know a lot about that genre and also international mysteries.
00:23:23
Speaker
So that sounds really good.
Spoofs in Mystery TV
00:23:26
Speaker
And I thought I would just cap off by bringing up the woman in the window across the street from the girl in the window. So we have this spoof on the genre, which I, and we also have Kristen Bell coming back from her Veronica Mars days. I thought it was a really, really fun show. I loved the way that it poked fun at the genre.
00:23:53
Speaker
at some of the tropes that really are pretty worn out. And so that was a lot of fun. But I have to admit, and I won't make any spoilers here, but I have to admit that I hated the ending. I don't know what else to say because I don't want to spoil it.
00:24:09
Speaker
Yeah, I'm trying to remember. So I reluctantly watched this because I thought, I love the mystery genre so much. I don't want to watch something that is making fun of it. So it was with some reservation that I watched it, but I actually loved it. I thought it was just the right amount of poking fun at the genre.
00:24:34
Speaker
uh and there was a mystery element and and so you know it was um it it was it was it was really really well done um and i'm trying to remember what the um conclusion was uh so maybe i'll have to rewatch it so that i can
00:24:51
Speaker
so that we can have that conversation. Because that is one of my problems is that I so rarely retain what the solution to whatever I've watched or whatever I've read is. I remember enjoying the experience of watching or reading, but I don't always remember what the solution was, which means that I can go back and rewatch things that I really enjoyed and enjoy them again.
00:25:21
Speaker
That's what I was going to say. I don't think it's a drawback because we're able to rewatch or reread because we've lost that. Somewhere along the line, I'll usually think, oh, I kind of think, we watched a movie last weekend and I said, I think I've seen this before. And so my husband offered, well, we can turn it off. And I'm like, no, no, it's okay. I'll be able to still enjoy it. And I did. And it still surprised me.
00:25:51
Speaker
Yeah, no, I have the same experience. I think it's a fallout from consuming a lot. You know, if I only watched one movie a month or whatever or read one book a month or it may, but we consume a lot of mysteries, Sarah.
Conclusion and Future Plans
00:26:07
Speaker
So I think that that is a side effect of that. I agree. Brooke, thank you so much for this great conversation. It was so much fun to talk about TV mysteries that we've enjoyed.
00:26:19
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that this will be the first in many conversations. Maybe we'll pick a genre or pick a time era and do a little deeper dive into TV sometimes, Sarah. That sounds great. So thank you everyone for joining us today on another episode of Clued in Mystery. I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah. And we both love mystery.
00:26:39
Speaker
Clued in Mystery is produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers at Silvermansound.com. Visit us online at cluedinmystery.com or social media at Clued in Mystery. If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or telling your friends.