A Brief Guide to British TV Detective Shows
The detective will be moody, irascible, and/or conflicted
over family issues.
The detective’s boss will be a paper-pushing dolt.
At some point the paper-pushing dolt will take the moody, irascible,
and/or conflicted-over-family-issues detective off the case.
All houses and flats in Britain seem to be furnished with a
mail flap in the front door whose purpose is not to receive mail (the victims
never get any) but (a) to allow villains to pour petrol through it and set fire
to the house or flat or (b) to allow some nosy person to peer into the dwelling
and discover a body in the hallway.
If the house or flat is not burned down or has no body
inside but needs to be investigated, a spare key will be found (for a house) underneath
a flowerpot to the left of the door or (for a flat) on the lintel above the
door. Amazingly, no thief ever has figured this out.
If the detective decides that the key to the case is locked
in someone’s computer, the detective will secretly access the machine and on
the fifth try will successfully guess the owner’s password.
If the location of the action is either Scotland or
Yorkshire, no subtitles will be available.
Note: None of the above holds true for Agatha Christie
stories. Instead, substitute lots of drinking of tea (for the Miss Marples) or
tisanes (for the Hercule Poirots).
*
Bonus Mini-Guide to Danish TV Detective
Stories:
At some point everybody will have
been thrown into jail.
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