So, in the last 3 weeks we have completed watching all 10 season of Vera. Each season, or series as we Anglophiles say, consists of 4 episodes. In series 1 through 9 they were 1-1/2 hours each. For series 10 they were 2 hours each. Which equates to 62 hours of British Mystery TV.
After polishing Vera off I looked around on Britbox for more shows like this. I picked out a couple more to try: Scott & Bailey and Shakespeare & Hathaway – Private Investigators. We started with Scott & Bailey first and once we got 15 minutes into Episode 1 of Series 1 Donna said she didn’t care for it, so we stopped. So we started with Episode 1 of Series 1 of Shakespeare & Hathaway. Once again Donna was not impressed, but I convinced her to stick it out for the whole 45 minutes. This in many ways was the antithesis of Vera, it was more comedy than straight procedural and every character was broadly drawn. I thought it was OK and even started watching Episode 2 on my own, but gave up early on as it just seemed too strange.
My third attempt on a mystery show turned out much better. Instead of Northumberland County in northeast England and a female DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) for Vera, this was set in the Shetland Islands, north of Scotland, with a caring, yet stoic, male DI (Detective Inspector) called, appropriately enough, Shetland. Turns out that both Shetland and Vera are based on books by the same author, Ann Cleeves.
Shetland has 5 Series so far and has been renewed for 6 and 7. Series 1 consisted of just two 1 hour episodes which covered on mystery. Series 2 was six 1 hour episodes consisting of three 2 show mysteries. They changed things up for Series 3, 4 & 5. These were made up six episodes, each covering one mystery each. While the show was great, in line with our enjoyment of Vera, we stopped watching midway through season 5 because the human trafficking story seemed a wee bit weird considering that the Shetlands are in the North sea 330 miles west of Norway and 250 miles north of Scotland (even though it is based on actual events from the early 2000’s.) Another 23 hours of TV there.
When Donna asked, “What’s next?” I answered that I really was intrigued by Scott & Bailey and I might just watch it on my own. She said, “Let’s give it another try.” Two episodes in and we were both hooked. This show was centered around two DC’s (Detective Constables) in one of the Manchester Metropolitan Police Major Incident Teams that are charged with solving murders and other serious crimes against persons. Unlike our past two shows, which were 90% mystery and 10% character development, this has a lot more relationship content between these two women and the others in their orbit to go along with solving a crime. There are five Series with every show being 45 minutes long. Sometimes there is one crime solved per show, sometimes it takes a couple episodes to solve them and others are series long arcs. Series 1 was six episodes, series 2 through 4 were 8 episodes and the fifth consisted of just 3 episodes. Another almost 25 hours of listening to the Queen’s English.
We also, just yesterday and today, burned through six 30 minute episodes of a single series comedy called Scarborough. It is a comedy about life of some small people in a small seaside town. While some of the older British comedy shows are a little obtuse, this more modern one is pretty darn funny to these American ears. Although that maybe partially the effect of watching over 100 hours of British TV…
I have to say that recently, quite a bit of the time, my thoughts seem to be in an English accent and sometimes I refer to myself in the third person. And once the world returns sort of back to normal, I will be relishing the opportunity to use the term knobhead. 🙂
