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Moody Murder Mysteries


Datepalm

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I've recently watched and quite enjoyed a whole bunch of these shows - Broadchurch, The Bridge (American version,) Top of the Lake, The Fall, The Killing (a while ago,) even True Detective and now Shetland.



So, anyone else into this kind of thing? Slow, quiet, a little restrained, strong sense of place. I find them terrifically calming. Any recs for more of the same? If it's set somewhere where it rains a lot, all the better, though an acceptably bleak desert will also do.


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I've recently watched and quite enjoyed a whole bunch of these shows - Broadchurch, The Bridge (American version,) Top of the Lake, The Fall, The Killing (a while ago,) even True Detective and now Shetland.

So, anyone else into this kind of thing? Slow, quiet, a little restrained, strong sense of place. I find them terrifically calming. Any recs for more of the same? If it's set somewhere where it rains a lot, all the better, though an acceptably bleak desert will also do.

I like most of those. Try the Morse franchise. There's Inspector Morse (quite dated now but quite melancholy), a sequel spinoff called Lewis, and a new prequel series called Endeavour set in the late 60's with a young Morse.

They're set in Oxford, lots of classical music in the background.

For other dated detective shows there's Taggart, set in Glasgow. It started in the 80's and stopped several years ago.

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I'm finding the switching back and forth between Welsh and English a bit odd. Usually that kind of thing carries some meaning (speaking as someone who speaks in several different languages over the course of a day) - family and generational dynamics, group inclusion/exclusion, class, demographics, politics, etc. Random strangers randomly switching between languages from one sentence to the next just seems weird to me. And, on the other hand, there isn't much of the way groups of multilingual people usually display that, by mixing in words and phrases from one language into another as they go. Here it's weirdly all-English conversation, followed by all Welsh conversation, etc.



Yeah, the setting was my favorite thing in True Detective. I never had any interest or patience for all the codes and philosophy and whatever else is supposedly lurking down there - as a grim, straightforward little murder mystery in the back end of nowhere, on the other hand, that I enjoyed.


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More on Taggart- it started as a bit of a mismatched buddy cop series- thr grizzled Chief Inspector Taggart who grew up in Glasgow, rose through the ranks the hard way, likes a drink. The phrase "there's bin a murdur" in a hard Glaswegian accent was associated with this show.

His oroginal sidekick sergeant was from Edinburgh (big Glasgow/edinburgh rivalry), a posh university graduate who's risen quickly through the ranks because of his education.

He leaves after a few episodes (they're extended) and the next young sergeant takes his place, a teetotal born again Christian.

The much later cast is more of an ensemble.

Some good bits - the posh sergeant timidly shows a biker gang his police warrant card - and the leader promptly bites it in half. Taggart shows up with more cops and the biker leader defiantly spits next to his foot. Taggart calmly informs him that "The last person who did that near me wore his baws (balls) hame (home) as earrings".

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Another one would be Vera ,and just like Shetland it too is based on the books of crime author Ann Cleeves.



Starring Brenda Blethyn..Season 4 started on 27 April.



Trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SROAxtTGzeA




The central character is Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Vera Stanhope of the fictional Northumberland & City Police (Northumbria & City Police in some episodes) who is obsessive about her work and driven by her own demons. If she’s lonely she doesn’t show it and faces the world with caustic wit, guile and courage, often with highly strung bad temper. Her trusted and long-suffering colleague is Detective Sergeant (DS) Joe Ashworth (David Leon), her right-hand man and surrogate son.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_(TV_series)




Rebus (2000 - 2007) is the title of the detective drama TV series based on the Inspector Rebus novels by the Scottish author Ian Rankin set in and around Edinburgh, Scotland. There are four series with two different characters playing Rebus. In fact there were two series. The first four episodes starred John Hannah as DCI Rebus and the later ones Ken Stott.






Jack Taylor (2010 - 2013) is set in Galway,Ireland and based on a series of novels by Ken Bruen, and stars Iain Glen (Ser Jorah Mormont in Game of Thrones) in the role of Jack Taylor, a heavy drinking, loner ex-cop who becomes a private investigator after leaving the service. Jack is often reluctantly taking on cases the police will not investigate.








Single-Handed (2007 - 2010) is an Irish television drama series, first broadcast on RTÉ Television in 2007. Set and filmed in the west of Ireland, it focuses on the life of a member of the Garda Síochána (police), Sergeant Jack Driscoll (played by Owen McDonnell).The series is partially inspired by garda corruption in County Donegal.





Quirke (2014) is a British-Irish crime drama television series that was first broadcast on BBC One and RTÉ One in 2014. The three-part series is based on the books by John Banville, writing under the pseudonym Benjamin Black.


Starring Gabriel Byrne and Michael Gambon.





Endeavour (2012 - ) is a British television detective drama series. It is a prequel to the long-running Inspector Morse and like it is set primarily in Oxford. Shaun Evans portrays a young Endeavour Morse beginning his career as a Detective Constable with the Oxford City Police CID


Set in 1965-1966 Oxford, England, the series centres on the early career of Endeavour Morse (Shaun Evans) after leaving Lonsdale College of Oxford University late in his third year without taking a degree, spending a short time in the Royal Corps of Signals as a cipher clerk, and then joining the Carshall-Newtown Police.





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Endeavour's good. If you like it, try Lewis which is contemporary and had Morse's sidekick Lewis as the DCI and Laurence Fox as his sergeant, Hathaway (almost became a priest, thrn joined the police). His dry humour helps the show.

In one episode there's a great turn from Ser Alistair Thorne as a criminal turned bestselling writer.

For something a bit more bizarre, there's the UK Life on Mars about a 2006 detective who gets hit by a car and wakes up in 1973. The follow-up Ashes to Ashes (set early 80s with a female detective from 2008) has a ropy season 1 but improves and ties up the loose ends.

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So, anyone else into this kind of thing? Slow, quiet, a little restrained, strong sense of place. I find them terrifically calming. Any recs for more of the same? If it's set somewhere where it rains a lot, all the better, though an acceptably bleak desert will also do.

While it seems a bit simplistic to describe it as just a murder mystery, Twin Peaks seems like the perfect example of this.

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I'm not finding Endeavour all that great - they're too long and require too much concentration - but the guy playing Morse is just so goddamned gorgeous that I keep watching. He should never, ever wear anything other than a trench coat. I don't care what he wears under the trench coat.


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I'm not finding Endeavour all that great - they're too long and require too much concentration - but the guy playing Morse is just so goddamned gorgeous that I keep watching. He should never, ever wear anything other than a trench coat. I don't care what he wears under the trench coat.

That's mostly what I watched bits and bobs with my nan lol! Because the guy was so nice looking.

did you watch more hinterland in the end? It's airing on english tv at the moment after already being successful in wales. They recorded two versions of it. One in welsh, one in english.

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Endeavour's good. If you like it, try Lewis which is contemporary and had Morse's sidekick Lewis as the DCI and Laurence Fox as his sergeant, Hathaway (almost became a priest, thrn joined the police). His dry humour helps the show.

Endeavour is great. That first TV movie that kickstarted the series because of it's huge succes was brilliant. I was a bit disappointed in the later episodes, they are still good, but they just aren't on the same level as the TV-Movie.

Everything about that blew me away. It was the first time in a very, very long time that I hadn't guessed who the murderer was (probably because I never watched Morse, so I didn't know the MO). And the music blew me away! Janis Kelly's rendition of Puccini's 'Un Bel Di' is a marvel.

Lewis is nice as well.

Jack Taylor (2010 - 2013) is set in Galway,Ireland and based on a series of novels by Ken Bruen, and stars Iain Glen (Ser Jorah Mormont in Game of Thrones) in the role of Jack Taylor, a heavy drinking, loner ex-cop who becomes a private investigator after leaving the service. Jack is often reluctantly taking on cases the police will not investigate.

I also second this recommendation. The stories are pretty dull and cliche imo, but the setting and the actors make it all worth it.

Wallander, with Kenneth Branagh. All the other ones I could think of have already been named.

Ugh, strongly dislike Branagh's Wallander. Painful to watch sometimes. Henning Mankell's version is better imo.

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Other series that I might recommend:

Inspector George Gently

Inspector George Gently (simply called George Gently for the pilot and first series) is a British television series produced by Company Pictures for BBC One, set in the 1960s and based on the Inspector Gently novels by Alan Hunter.

Zen (sadly the series was axed after three episodes because the BBC felt that it already had to many male crimifighters). The Italian setting was one of the strong points of this series. Though it wasn't rainy ;)

Zen is a British television series. It stars Rufus Sewell and Caterina Murino and is based on the Aurelio Zen detective novels by Michael Dibdin.[2] The series was filmed on location in Italy, but the dialogue is in English. The series, which comprises three 90-minute films, was broadcast in the United Kingdom on Sunday evenings from 2 January 2011 on BBC One.[3] The three films were based on the books Vendetta, Cabal and Ratking.[4]

And then there is 'the inspector Lynley Mysteries' (I think it's not as good as some other things mentioned in this thread, but it has a good setting) and of course 'Midsomer Murders' (the quality has drastically decreased over the years, but the first episodes were nice).

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The very earliest Morse's werent that great but quickly improve. A good franchise, stretching from 1968 to 2012(ish). Hopefully sometime down the line thy'll do a Hathaway spin-off. His droll delivery is awesome.

Foyle's War is excellent - set in the south-east of England in the early 40's with people expecting a Nazi invasion any minute. The later seasons were a bit disappointing - except for the last one (so far - another one expected next year) which revitalised the post-war setting by having Foyle join MI5.

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