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Television Mystery Series… What to Start With?… (Part 2)

Last month I wrote an entry with a few suggestions that I thought would be agood place to start if you’re new to Cozy Mystery television series and TV movies. Well, I actually had a longer list, but the post started getting pretty long so I decided to hold off on some of the others until later.

As before, the  TV and Movies page on my site is a great place to start when you’re looking for Cozy TV or movie adaptations, but since it can be pretty long I’ll be discussing a few more that I’m particularly fond of.

The first show I want to highlight is Hetty Wainthropp Investigates. The title character of Hetty was played by the remarkable Dame Patricia Routledge, who also starred in another of my favorite British TV shows (not a mystery) Keeping Up Appearances. Hetty, along with her also senior citizen husband, starts a detective agency partially to remain active in her senior years. She is assisted by a young man, Geoffrey – played by Dominic Monaghan (yes, of the J.R.R. Tolkien Lord of the Rings!) who provides much of the “leg work”. I first wrote about and recommended Hetty Wainthropp Investigates way back in 2006! Yikes! (I absolutely love this show!)

Most of the suggestions so far have been British productions, which isn’t a big surprise since they’re all based off of British Cozies… which again isn’t surprising, since a lot of the “classic” Cozies were originally written by British authors. Well, my next suggestion isn’t quite as Cozy as some of these other entries, but I would say it still fits within the Cozy mold. Columbo isn’t an amateur sleuth, but a lieutenant with the Los Angeles Police Department. These mysteries are also a bit different from most in that the viewer watches the crime being committed, and as a result is already aware of “whodunit”. However, Columbo himself is so well played by Peter Falk and the murderers and support casts are all so well played that the experience of how Columbo catches the killer is absolutely riveting. I particularly recommend these to anyone who is a big fan of classic television or movies from the 1950s to 1970s, as the cast of Columbo includes some of the absolute best actors of their generation, albeit a bit after their “famous” phases. (You can currently find this show on TV if you check your local TV schedules.)

Another non-British mystery series that I really like is Ellery Queen Mysteries starring Jim Hutton as Ellery and David Wayne as his father. It was produced in 1975-1976 and consists of 22 episodes. Following the formula that the producers, Richard Levinson and William Link, had used in Columbo and would later use in Murder She Wrote, each episode includes a number of famous guest stars. Ellery, a mystery writer, goes along with his police detective father and invariably solved the mystery. I really like the relationship between Ellery and his father. Jim Hutton and David Wayne were terrific together. One unique aspect of the show is that before Ellery solves the mystery he turns to the camera talks to the audience and recaps the clues he will use to solve the mystery. (Even with this help, I don’t believe I solved a single one!) I can’t believe that it is almost five years since I first wrote about this great series.

Again, these are just some of my favorite series that I would suggest to anyone who hasn’t seen them yet, whether they are fans of Cozies or not… If you’ve got any other suggestions for great Cozy Mystery TV or movie series to start with, please be sure to leave them in the comments below!

Comments

  1. Love, Love, Love Hetty Wainthropp!!!! It is available at the library (maybe not all episodes), Netflix, and You-tube!!!

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    • LI, that’s good to know. Hetty Wainthropp is one of my very, very favorite Cozy Mystery television mystery series. I was hoping it was available on Acorn, but it’s not… The library is a great place to look for it!

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  2. I agree with you completely and have watched those over and over. I love all the Miss Marple my favorite Actress portrayed her- Geraldine McEwan.
    Midsomer Murders, Miss Fishers Mysteries, Father Brown, Doctor Blake, Rosemarry & Thyme, Murder in Suburbia, George Gently, Endeavour, Brokenwood, Hinterland,
    Ha my list goes on and on. I love love them and the books. Thank you. Love your page and site.

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    • i love geraldine McEwan! I first came across her in the strangest series ever – Mulberry, and loved her. Then saw her as Miss Marple. There was such a twinkle in her eye, and loved her voice.

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    • Whitney, I completely agree with your choices! I’ve been completely enchanted with so many British & Australian programs. Some of my absolutel favourites are also on your list.

      Hatty Wainthropp Investigates, Midsomer Murders, Miss Fishers Mysteries, Father Brown, Rosemary & Thyme, Murder in Suburbia, Brokenwood & Hinterland. I must also add: Agatha Raisin, Newton’s Law, Mr & Mrs Murder, Partners in Crime and the Snoop Sisters (but that’s a North American show from the 70s I think).

      and I’m not sure if these additional titles fit the genre (probably on the boundary): Vera, Kingdom & Foyles War.

      I feel so foetunate to have wandered across these shows. I just LOVE them!

      And for those who appreciate Dame Patricia Routledge, search for the outtakes from Keeping Up Appearances … it gave me an ever greater appreciation for her.

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  3. I really like Rosemary and Thyme, again a British series and all of the Miss Marples. I especially enjoyed watching the same book with different actresses. Loved the Jeremy Brett Sherlock also and comparing with Benedict Cumber (?) series..

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    • Peggy, I would probably end up comparing the Benedict Cumberbatch. series to the Jeremy Brett series, too. (If I watched them.) We did watch the Benedict C. series that was a travel back in time, and enjoyed that immensely. I really like both Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in the modern Sherlock shows, just never got used to a modern day Sherlock… (I’ve enjoyed Freeman ever since seeing him in the British The Office. Loved his portrayal of Tim.)

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  4. I love British detective shows. They are always at the top of my list when I watch television. I wish I had access to all British TV as it airs!

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      • i’ve always wanted to do acorn tv, but wasn’t sure how to do it. i kept reading about bad streaming. you said you are watching through amazon? i have apple tv and it’s not available that way. and i guess you can do it through an apple app, but i read that it didn’t work at all that way.

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      • Oooooh, I hadn’t heard about getting Acorn through amazon.com. I have Prime. Will have to check out Acorn.

        Last night my husband and I watched the last Midsomer Murders with John Nettles playing Tom Barnaby. I got so choked up at the end. Well, I actually sobbed with tears streaming down my face. Tom Barnaby, his wife Joyce, and daughter Cully have been such a part of my life for close to 20 years now. 🙁 I’m anxious to see the new chief inspector–John Barnaby–but Tom Barnaby will be difficult to replace! Love my Midsomer Murders–and the books, too!

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          • Danna, sounds like you’ve been a little disappointed. That’s sad.

            We’ve been watching one or two Midsomer Murders a night (on NetFlix) trying to play catch-up after years and years of it not being on local TV. (I remember the good ole’ days when it was on A&E (Arts & Entertainment, before it stopped showing anything even close to resembling arts and entertainment!) Tonight we’ll watch one or two of the new ones with John Barnaby. I know I’m going to miss Tom, but I’m willing to give this a good try!

            Last night I read some reviews about the John Barnaby version and people were complaining that it’s now more of a police procedural. People were also complaining that Midsomer Murders had ceased to have the fun and quirkiness of the first 10 or so seasons. Maybe I just loved the Tom Barnaby character so much, that I was willing to forgive the changes in the show. I sure hope it hasn’t become a police procedural. We’ll see!!! I’m anxious to give John Barnaby a chance to prove to me that he’s as good and as likable as his cousin. 🙂

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              • It works like any other streaming on Amazon. You just have to subscribe for the service first to access the shows. There’s a free trial period and then you’re charged by the month. I think it’s $4.99 a month. They have other premium networks you can subscribe for, also — Showtime, Starz, Lifetime Movies, I think HBO. I subscribed for a couple and they were fine, but I didn’t have time to watch enough to justify keeping them. I may resubscribe this winter.

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            • 4 of my favorites on Prime are Murder is my life, Father Brown, All Creatures Great and Small and Shakespeare and Hathaway. All great.

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          • Thanks, LI! We’ll probably watch two of the John Barnaby versions tonight. I’ll let you know what I think!

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        • Totally agree with you. After Barnaby left I didn’t think I would like the new Barnaby but loved him. Now that I’ve watched them all, I’m waiting on more. In the meantime I got hooked on Morse and Poirot and Miss Marple. After I watched all of them, I started with Lewis and that was just as good as Morse. I absolutely love Acorn tv.

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  6. I truly love and admire all three of these suggestions. I can see “Columbo” daily 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. ET on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries Channel (HMM), and although I missed seeing the shows when I was younger, I have been enthralled with the show now that I have found it many years after its final production. The final five or ten minutes is worth the wait, although the whole show is delightful. I adore the way Peter Falk plays the main character. I would love to see the “Hetty Wainthrop” shows and “Ellery Queen” again. I have some of the Hetty Wainthrop shows on video tape, and can actually watch them once I get a VHS converter that I purchased a few months ago set up. I certainly agree with these choices of yours as exceptional examples of TV series.

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    • Merrilee, I think it would be great if PBS would re-air the Hetty Wainthropp shows. We have the discs, and watch them every once in a while. I don’t think they have aged too much >>> plus, I know how popular Downton Abbey is on PBS, and there are no modern-gadgets involved on those shows. Seems like a good, old fashioned detective show would be a nice addition to their line-up.

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    • I agree, Merrilee: I loved Columbo and he is a classic. But did you know, on another genre on TV, he did a spot as Angel “Max” on a couple Hallmark specials with Martha WIlliamson (I think producer on “Touched with an Angel” and he played with the Mom from Married with Children, Katie ?. Really great. He played a fun and mischievous angel. I also see Columbo on Hallmark channel. I watch the Hart to Hart, Murder She Wrote and Diagnosis Murder shows too.

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      • No, I didn’t know about Peter Falk acting in Hallmark specials. He really was a terrific actor, and quite a character as a person I have read. I can certainly see him being a mischievous angel….well, actually, I don’t have that good of an imagination, but I would LOVE to see him doing it. He would be funny. I watch “Hart to Hart” and “Diagnosis Murder” on HMM, too. When I got my new server, I had to make sure the salesman understood I wanted the Hallmark Movies and Mysteries channel, not just the Hallmark channel. He thought they were both one and the same. Because of this blog, I just found out about Acorn. I will have to look into that.

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  8. LOVE the quietness and the people in Hetty Wainthropp and even more than that one, love Rosemary and Thyme. And inspector Lewis. And there is an older, fun British mystery series about a policeman who retires to open a restaurant, but keeps getting called in to help on cases – Pie in the Sky. There are so many good British mystery series! : )

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  9. ELLERY QUEEN was one of my favorite shows, why it only lasted one season is beyond me. I was thrilled when I was able to get it on DVD. James Hutton and David Wayne are wonderful, I love them both. It always astounded me that everything else Levinson and Link did was so successful. But, it seems like it was a network dispute thing, what a surprise! Seems like the reason most great shows disappear.

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  10. I may have missed this last month, but I remember they made a series about the M.C. Beaton Hamish Macbeth books.

    I remember renting them from Netflix awhile ago. They were good, but some of the characters seemed different than the books (or at least as I had them in my head!). The setting was beautiful though and made me want to go visit Locdubh.

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    • Jayne, I had the same idea about the Hamish Macbeth TV series. The characters were quite different, especially Hamish. Yikes! I watched the show not associating it with the book series. The show’s Hamish appeared to be the most competent of detectives, with everyone looking up to him as a very intelligent policeman. Not at all like the books!

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      • Yes…it was a long while ago, but I knew they didn’t jibe with the books. They were still fairly good though.

        Sometimes I don’t like having my favorites moved into tv/movies though anyway (even if they do stick to the story lines better). I think I get an idea in my head about what characters look like and then they cast someone who doesn’t fit that image.

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    • Yes, Hamish Macbeth was a fairly good series, but you just had to forget that it had anything much to do with the books : ). I am pretty sure it was filmed in plockton – which is beautiful from all the pictures I’ve seen online and on Pinterest : ). I love looking up places in scotland on Pinterest. We’re going to be very near plockton this summer, but not sure if we’ll be able to visit it or not.

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      • Julie, did you make it to Plockton this summer? Was it all that you imagined? I went to Scotland two years ago and loved every second of it. Such beautiful country!

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  11. mentioning hetty wainthropp reminded me that there is a true story mystery that i saw years ago on our local PBS station – a mystery movie with Patricia Routledge – Anybody’s Nightmare – made in 2001. I looked and looked for it. and finally got it through some site that probably taped it from tv, but that was fine with me as it wasn’t available any other way. i have a region 2 dvd player so that i can see things i couldn’t see otherwise : )

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  12. I (vaguely) remember the ‘Columbo’ series being re-made. (According to IMDB in 1989.) and in order to come back, Peter Falk had a list of demands.
    Not unusual for an actor of any stature, but his included a dirty, grubby, old trenchcoat and his original car. The network offered him a nice clean, new, coat, but he (Quite rightly, I think) said no, that the grubby one was Columbo’s trademark. A new one just wouldn’t be the same.
    Of course, the one he originally wore was long gone, so they dirtied up a new one for him! Lol!
    As for the car, they actually managed to track it down, and buy it from the (then) current owner. A little old lady who (IIRC) had no idea of what it had been.
    Ain’t showbusiness fun! 🙂

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    • Susan*, thanks for all the info on Columbo. What a surprise that they got rid of the original car! Good news they were able to track it down. I always enjoy seeing all the guest stars on the show. I m guessing they were friends of Peter Falk’s since some of them appeared several times >>> as totally different characters. (Robert Culp, Anne Francis, Robert Vaughn)

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  13. You’ve chosen three of my favorites as well, Danna! I never get tired of Columbo. Peter Falk was an amazing actor, and don’t you just love to see that “gotcha!” moment at the end of every episode? It’s still a thrill! I remember watching Ellery Queen with my Dad, even though I was just a kid. Will have to get the DVDs and watch it again.

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      • I have “Ellery Queen” and “Alfred Hitchcock” mystery magazines from 1994 and probably earlier, from when I had subscriptions to them. Also, some individual magazines, one an Alfred Hitchcock magazine dating back to 1971. They are really fun to have, and, no, I haven’t read all the stories (short stories) in all of the magazines, which is why I didn’t keep up my subscriptions to them – – because I couldn’t keep up trying to read the stories and features with each monthly issue. However, I still have them all. There are fascinating “historic” items mentioned, such as when they introduce new authors with a blog called “The Jury Box,” telling about new authors and the Jury Box author’s opinion of various books. Looking through the magazines recently, I found that one of the new authors introduced was Martha Grimes. I’m sure there are plenty more to find out that the magazine introduced that I would now recognize as established. I would never throw them away, as has been suggested by some other people. History is important to me, and these are a beautiful glimpse of the past, as well as still relevant and good short stories.

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        • Merrilee, how wonderful that you had the foresight to keep those old magazines. I remember my dad getting the Alfred Hitchcock magazine, and me (unbeknownst to him) reading some of the stories when he was at work.

          I just found some stories from a magazine that are being re-issued as e-stories that I will be adding to the Soon to Be Released page. It sounds like you’re one step ahead of us!

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    • Ann, we started watching Grantchester, but I kept complaining so much about the Amanda character that we stopped. I just couldn’t enjoy any scene with that character. I liked the actress, but I thought Amanda stringing Sidney Chambers along was deplorable. I ruined the show for my husband…

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    • There was a bit in a local newspaper recently, that the author didn’t like what the BBC did to his characters, especially Sydney. He specifically mentioned Sydneys excess drinking and behaviour, as well as some anachronistic language that wouldn’t be used in the period.

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  15. I have no idea if they bear even the slightest resemblance to the books, but I’ve been enjoying Murdoch Mysteries on Netflix. Clean as a whistle [set in 1880s? ’90s? Toronto], and the lead character is a clean-living Catholic schooled by Jesuits. Warning: the lovely Dr. Julia Ogden does do some graphic post mortems …

    I really like the chemistry among the cast, and am at Season 4; there have been a few very outstanding episodes, a few middling ones, but most are very good. I do hope Constable Crabtree gets a promotion one of these days 😉

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  16. Loved them all. Besides Poirot, with the fabulous David Souchet, I found a series on Ovation network called The Artful Detective. It’s based in Toronto in 1895, the protagonist is a Toronto detective, his cohorts,besides his fellow male cops, is a woman Doctor/Pathologist, who solves crimes with him. I just thought that was very cool for that kind of that time period show.

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    • Mel, I just read your description of The Artful Detective, and thought it looked really familiar. Well, as it turns out, for some reason there are two titles for the same show. This is the same show as Murdoch! Isn’t that crazy? It’s a fun show, regardless of what it is called!

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  17. Love all these. And how about “Monk”, or “Psych”? Another Brit series — “Albert Campion” based on Margery Allingham’s books and starring Peter Davison (All Creatures Great And Small and the 5th Doctor of “Dr. Who”).

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      • I dearly love the Monk series – best ending to a series, ever. Castle and Lost and others should have taken ending series lessons from those writers! I can’t understand why it isn’t in reruns or being put anywhere, like Netflix. It has just disappeared! I have it on DVD, but I’m kind of shocked it’s not anywhere to be found for those who don’t already own it!

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        • Julie b, I have that very same feeling about a lot of really (what I consider) good shows that sort of just disappeared. A & E used to show terrific television shows that might otherwise have been lost to new generations, but they changed their format. What a shame!

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          • to go back MANY years – to when my children were little or weren’t even here yet – there was a series called , “Family” with Sada Thompson, and Kristy McNichol (sp?). It was really wonderful, and Sony owns it, and they put the first year on dvd and never released any more of it. So sad. I’m not the only one who remembers it and has begged for them to release it, but i doubt they ever will.

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  18. Has anyone watched the Agatha Raisin movies on Acorn? I like it, not close enough to the books as I would have liked, then again none of the movies really match the books, but still enjoyable….

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  19. Hello! I’m so happy to have found your blog! I wanted to suggest adding Murder, She Wrote to your list of cozy mystery TV, all seasons of this wonderful show are available on Amazon. Com on DVD.

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    • Raven, I totally agree with you on this one. I have been a fan of the Murder,She Wrote television show for years. I know I should write an entry about this show, but I keep pushing it off, thinking that most Cozy lovers already know about it…

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  20. I loved the period mystery show called Nero Wolfe! I think they used to show it in A&E, but it had Timothy Hutton as the sidekick, anyone familiar with it?

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