D
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Over the last number of months (when I've had more couch time than I care to ever have again) I have come to appreciate a number of very fine and extremely entertaining British television police / crime dramas.
In general they are all well-written, extremely well-acted, and in most cases both the urban and rural mis-en-scenes are fantastically real and vibrant.
In the British tradition, a "season" of each show typically only lasts three or four episodes, although for some series each episode comes in two parts, and each episode / part is longer in duration than your typical American fare.
Here are the ones I've worked through so far. They're easy to look up and check out on your own so I won't go into any detail about them.
In the Line of Duty
Worricker
Luther
Vera
DCI Banks
I should also caution that these can be quite graphic / gruesome / grisly in their depiction of murders etc.
Of the five above, both Vera and DCI Banks continue to be produced, and in fact the final episode of the season for DCI Banks aired over there this evening.
Each is different in its own way, and each will rope you in. I loved them all but if I were to highlight but one thing about just one of these, it is the amazing on-screen chemistry between star Idris Elba (as John Luther) and Ruth Wilson (as Alice Morgan) in Luther.
I urge folks to check them out, with but one caveat: if, like most Americans, you've never traveled to the UK and experienced Brits first hand for any period of time, you might get a big dose of culture / language shock - even though they are speaking English! Stick with it. Trust me: your brains have enough plasticity to adapt to those "foreign" dialects and quirks, and within a few episodes you should better understand what they are saying, and more importantly why they are doing what they are doing. (For example: cops / detectives almost never carry guns. So before you yell "shoot him" when the protagonist is facing a bad guy, remember that they can't!
)
Jeff
In general they are all well-written, extremely well-acted, and in most cases both the urban and rural mis-en-scenes are fantastically real and vibrant.
In the British tradition, a "season" of each show typically only lasts three or four episodes, although for some series each episode comes in two parts, and each episode / part is longer in duration than your typical American fare.
Here are the ones I've worked through so far. They're easy to look up and check out on your own so I won't go into any detail about them.
In the Line of Duty
Worricker
Luther
Vera
DCI Banks
I should also caution that these can be quite graphic / gruesome / grisly in their depiction of murders etc.
Of the five above, both Vera and DCI Banks continue to be produced, and in fact the final episode of the season for DCI Banks aired over there this evening.
Each is different in its own way, and each will rope you in. I loved them all but if I were to highlight but one thing about just one of these, it is the amazing on-screen chemistry between star Idris Elba (as John Luther) and Ruth Wilson (as Alice Morgan) in Luther.
I urge folks to check them out, with but one caveat: if, like most Americans, you've never traveled to the UK and experienced Brits first hand for any period of time, you might get a big dose of culture / language shock - even though they are speaking English! Stick with it. Trust me: your brains have enough plasticity to adapt to those "foreign" dialects and quirks, and within a few episodes you should better understand what they are saying, and more importantly why they are doing what they are doing. (For example: cops / detectives almost never carry guns. So before you yell "shoot him" when the protagonist is facing a bad guy, remember that they can't!
)Jeff
