Excellent british TV

Books, comics, TV, music
1

Can only have four images per post, so only included some.

Not living in the UK or any part of America, instead living in a generic other country where we get some of the shows years later, I tend to download all of the television I watch. And while in general, I find American television to be just as entertaining in a different way, at the moment British TV is just feeling so much more satisfying to watch. So I thought I would list some of my favourites (which coincidentally are all downloadable, if you look hard enough), in case people weren’t aware of it or were and didn’t know you could get it.

I was planning to list american series which the british ones were similar to, but I just can’t compare most of them to anything. The shows listed below tend to have a underlying humour to them, where you don’t find this in american police dramas.

Dalziel and Pascoe (currently airing)

Genre: Police drama.

Warren Clarke has, to me, always been one of those actors whom I find to have a certain charisma that just makes for enthralling viewing. In this show, he plays a surly police officer, one of the two main characters that solve the mystery/crime.

If possible, get the first season. It is up to its tenth season now, and while it is still great watching, like most shows that go on for a long time, it just doesn’t have the special edge it once had.

[Mel Smith](]Hustle (currently airing)

This is a light but extremely entertaining drama about a team of five ‘grifters’ (one of whom is Bill Murray’s daughter in real life) and each episode details the execution of a con. They generally only con people who you are made to feel deserve it. The last episode even had [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Smith) in it – I had wondered where he went after [Alas Smith and Jones](http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/a/alassmithandjone_1299002882.shtml).

Comparable in feel to: Keen Eddie (the better episodes).

Lewis (recently aired)

Genre: Police drama.

Morse and Lewis:

Inspector Morse was an extremely popular show. However, eventually the detective (Morse) was killed off and the actor that played him (Jon Thaw) died shortly after. However, there was a one-off pilot of a continuing series based around his sidekick Lewis which may turn into a full-fledged series. Here’s hoping, because the pilot was pretty good.

Midsomer Murders (currently airing)

Genre: Police drama.

Remember Bergerac? Well, we had it in the country I grew up in. John Nettles, who was the lead in that and then as far as I know disappeared, came out of nowhere some years back to play a police officer in this show. Each episode generally details him and his sidekick solving some eccentric murder mystery in an equally eccentric backwater english village with just as eccentric denizens.

Like Dalziel and Pascoe, this has been around for nine seasons. It is still good, but I’d advise starting from the beginning if possible as it too has lost some of the edge it once had.

Rosemary and Thyme (season just finished)

Felicity Kendal - The Good Life/Good Neighbours:

Genre: Crime drama.

Way way back, two more of my favourite british actors (Felicity Kendal and Richard Briers) starred in a hilarious sitcom called The Good Life (known as Good Neighbours in the USA), about a couple who decided to go back to nature and grow or raise their food themselves. Unlike a lot of comedies from its time, it is still just as funny today (and you can find it for download out there if it isn’t showing on your local generic Sky british comedy channel). In any case, Felicity Kendal is back in a new series in which two elderly ladies have a landscaping business, but just happen to go around solving crimes.

Other older or not currently airing series worth checking out that have dones the rounds of the torrent sites (but are well worth getting on DVD if you cannot find them there):

[ul]
[li][b]New Tricks[/b]. Ever wonder what happened to Dennis Waterman after Minder? Me neither, but along with several other british actors and an actress who have been in a variety of other shows you might have seen, he is in this.
[/li][li]The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Some television shows from the 80’s do not age well, but this one is excellent. Any other versions of Sherlock Holmes pale beside it… well, except for that one episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation where the holodeck does a Sherlock Holmes adventure and Moriarty escapes the holodeck.
[/li][li]Hercule Poirot. Excellent television series dramatising the “Hercule Poirot” novels written by Agatha Christie.
[/li][/ul]

2

Just for clarifcation, he is referring to a Brit actor named Bill or Billy Murray, not the American Bill Murray.

Jaime Murray is incredibly hot.

— Alan

3

You really should check out Cracker with Robbie Coltrane.

And Prime Suspect.

4

I highly suggest ‘My Family’. It’s a great brit-comedy. In Ontario it’s on YTV weeknights at 10 pm.

5

Z-Cars! Dixon of Dock Green!!

Bloody hell, I’m old.

6

Hey where’s Dog Leash, the detective?

Misomer and Morse are two of the best crime shows ever, in any country. Highly recommended. I don’t like Poirot, but many do.

Your list only has detective shows? My wife really likes Murder in Suburbia. I have to admit, it’s pretty good too.

7

Oh, if you like the idea of an older woman that just ‘happens to solve crimes’ Patricia Routledge did a show called Hetty Wainthrop Investigates (or something like that). You might want to check it out. Like MiS and the others, it has the humor you are talking about.

8

Doctor Who! heh.

— Alan

9

All those crime procedurals, and no mention of Life on Mars?

10

Bergerac has not entered my conscious mind since about 1992.

This was an amazing show. It featured a 1970s-meets the 1980s “symphony in cream polyester” aesthetic of turtlenecked rich British twits being murdered all the time in Jersey, had a man named Bergerac investigate them and discover that every one had some connection to his rich British twit father in law. This managed to go on for something like a 100 murders across the entire thatcher era without anything seeming out of place on the tiny island on which the show was set. Though the island, Jersey, does indeed have in real life an inexhaustible supply of stupid wealthy British inhabitants.

Now, this was your archetypal straight-up English detective show, replete with grizzled, alcoholic, divorced, classic-car-driving, emotionectomied English detective. It was very straigh-laced. However, toward the end of its run, it lurched with the deranged and savage fury of a dying animal into the supernatural, with ghost stories and fantasy lurking around every corner.

The effect of this was very odd. Imagine turning on C-Span on a normal day to be confronted with some boring vote tally, only to watch as zombies lumber into the senate chamber and start eating the legislators. There’s not much to do except turn the TV off and make a nice cup of tea, which is exactly what I would do when Bergerac went bananas.

11

Oh yeah I have watched New Tricks and still need to catch up on the rest of the 2nd series. It’s okay if not a bit odd at times, and too Cold Case-ish for my taste (though the eccentrics are certainly fun to watch).

Tamzin Outhwaite is great in Redcap, but alas it is dead in the water. Rather interesting environment however (military investigators in the BAOR).

— Alan

12

The midsomer murders don’t have much to recommend them besides the countryside, the show is overpopulated by the the quaint and the eccentric, to me it comes across as an imitation, approaching parody, of older better rural British crime series.

13

Man, Felicity Kendal was pretty damn hot on The Good Life. That was a long time ago, though.

14

Ms. Kendal’s bottom was a regular topic of discussion on “The Young Ones” back in the day.

15

Yes, I forgot Cracker. Well, I had it in mind, but I forgot to list it along with some others. It is probably that it has been so long since I have seen it and don’t recall whether I liked it or not. But it is around as a torrent. I also forgot Murder in Suburbia, which is another pretty good police drama, but I do not know whether you can find the torrents for it at this time. I downloaded both seasons of it through torrents though, so you might be lucky and it might still be around.

It’s a pity that british seasons are generally only six episodes long. But you tend to get longer episodes, and the shows certainly don’t suffer from it, so I guess it evens out.

Life on Mars just doesn’t do it for me. I watched the pilot, and the aspect where he is most likely in a coma and dreaming it all undermines it for me. If they got rid of that and just had him having appeared in the past after the accident, I think I would like it more – although then it would probably remind me of The Sweeney.

[[Pie in the Sky](]Lovejoy](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106102/)

Genre: Crime drama.

Ian McShane recently made the series Deadwood worth watching. But what I remember him from, is this television series. All the seasons of this recently did the rounds of the torrent sites, and it might even still be available. He plays a lazy antiques dealer with an eye for the ladies, who happens to solve crimes and murders and stuff. Unfortunately, having watched the first three seasons I lost interest, I think that I would only recommend the first season and believe it went downhill after that point.

[b)[/b].

Genre: Crime drama.

Richard Griffiths to me, ranks up there with Warren Clarke as one of those actors who I forget to look for, but surprises me by being in something and makes it better just by doing so. Unfortunately, this one I haven’t seen as a torrent but I feel obliged to mention it because I rank it up there with Morse.

Richard Griffiths plays a retired police officer who retires to run a restaurant, but he gets dragged back to helping solve murders or crimes and things each episode. And the show doesn’t suffer for having some eye candy in the form of Samantha Janus.

NSFW pictures of Samantha Janus can be found here.

16

One more, since I just remembered it.

Bodies (second season just finished airing)

Genre: Medical drama.

Rob is some form of hospital worker, somewhere between doctor and nurse for all I can remember. Unfortunately he has the misfortune to get a job with an absolutely incompetent doctor who had no idea what he is doing and regularly botches the job. Fortunately he gets a job with lots of hot nurses, one of whom you get to see showing some t’n’a for him. The main story is what happens when the incompetent doctor is reported, how the hospital covers it up, doesn’t care, how much the british medical system sucks… etc.

Normally, I don’t like medical shows, but the story in this one I find extremely gripping. Both seasons have done the rounds on the torrent sites and might still be available.

17

Of recent shows, I’m becoming very partial to Doc Martin, which happily proves that Martin Clunes is more capable than you’d think, based on what was shown of him in Men Behaving Badly.

18

How’s Prime Suspect?

19

Started out brilliant. By “Prime Suspect VII” or whatever it had become The Bill in a Bra.

20

I caught an episode of Hustle last time I was visiting my parents. I really liked it. Its the one thats showing on AMC in the US, right?

Anyway, I think I need to watch that more on my own free time.