All three recent TV shows have a woman with a special way of looking at things and solving crimes.
Now I have never watch an episode of Elsbeth, but I know her from guest appearances on the Good Wife, etc. Her character annoys me, but she is at least an attorney, so there is a hint of realism there. Also the pop-up promos for her show turned me off. will skip it.
I have already gone on a rant about how utterly unrealistic High Potential is, So, unless requested I will skip it.
That leaves Patience a Brit mystery with Patience being an autistic woman with interesting and special ways of looking at things. At least here, she is already a employee of the York constabulary, down in the records section, so that is more realistic. Anyway, altho we have typical Brit mystery slow pacing, the show in better than the other two- the lead detective (DI) is also a woman, and the DI solves the cases (I have only watched three episodes so far), but with Patience’s help.
It is interesting to me, that all three special amateur detectives are women, maybe TV’s way of showing up the foolish misogynist male police dept?
Of course there was The Mentalist, kinda sorta different, yet similar, altho he wasnt autistic or anything. I enjoyed that show, except for the Red John parts.
I’m trying to find if there’s a specific question in your post but without any luck.
If you are noting the happy coincidence of three female amateur dicks (as we would once have said), then you can certainly go back to Miss Marple, Agatha Christie’s crime-solving busy-body, who was often a foil to the constabulary, depicted as being particularly thick and unsubtle.
If you look at crime-based TV shows (just British ones here for example), only a small fraction are women-led and many of those are modern police procedurals like Broadchurch, Unforgotten and Line of Duty.
I’m not familiar with any of these three shows. Maybe they are more in the cosy mystery vein, which tends to be built differently for male and female audiences?
Perhaps you could ask the bus-based question of why do we wait so long and three come along all at once?
Reality doesn’t make for good TV shows. I look for shows that are interesting, regardless of how realistic they are. I wouldn’t be able to watch any detective shows or anything remotely sci-fi if I needed a high level of reality.
It may not be for you, but Mrs. Geek and I both liked High Potential. It’s definitely not realistic, and for a show about someone with a high IQ I didn’t find it very intellectual either, but we thought it was fun.
For another unrealistic one, we’re just a couple of episodes into Poker Face. I’m not sure we’re going to be watching it frequently enough to properly call it a “binge,” but it’s entertaining so far, and I don’t mind a dose of Natasha Lyonne every once in a while. So yeah, there’ll probably be more of it at our house.
These are among my favorites. For me, gender doesn’t matter, but I suppose there are more female leads than male. It can be mystery, legal shows or whatever. It’s the character and story more than the crime. And having unique characters is important.
My favorites include:
Monk
Elsbeth
High Potential
Agatha Raisin
My Life is Murder
Columbo
Matlock (the current one with Kathy Bates)
The Mentalist
I haven’t seen Patience. If it’s along the same lines it’s something to check out.
If neurodivergent, female detectives are your thing, then there’s also the American version of The Bridge. (I didn’t see the original Danish-Swedish show, so I’m not sure if the characters share the same traits. There’s also a British-French adaptation, The Tunnel.) Diane Kruger’s character is described in the wiki as having an ’ undisclosed Asperger syndrome or a similar autism spectrum disorder.’
We liked the Elsbeth character on The Good Wife so much that we watch Elsbeth and enjoy it. The writers aren’t as good, but it’s enjoyable enough for our purposes.
We watched one episode of High Potential and I said “Nope”. If my wife has watched any more of it, I haven’t seen her do it.
We watched and enjoyed the series Astrid, the series Patience emulates, so we were interested to watch Patience. We’ve seen the first few episodes so far and liked them. We have a granddaughter on the spectrum and so know a little about autism and don’t find the character unbelievable.
If you’re looking for police procedurals with a good female lead, you should try Vera or Unforgotten. (The earlier episodes starring Nicola Walker. The new series, sans Walker, is just as good, but the lead is now Sanjeev Bhaskar, who was Walker’s partner earlier.)
I won’t watch Elsbeth because I can’t abide the character. My sister was watching it for a while because she enjoyed the guest stars, but she finally noped out, too.
We’re watching Patience, but much prefer the original French Astrid (called Astrid et Raphaelle in France). Patience explains too much instead of showing, and it sometimes feels like it’s more of a docudrama on neural divergency than a police procedural. Don’t like the policewoman’s male subordinate – bad actor and annoying. It’s pretty much an English language copy, though. We always know whodunit from the start of each episode since they’re not changing the stories except for minor details.
High Potential is a complete fantasy, but fun. I like the cast, and the stories are also fluff, but fun.
The OP is looking at it all wrong. Most mystery novels and films, and almost all TV mysteries, are written so the audience knows who the killer is before the detective knows. The entertainment comes from reading/watching how the detective solves the mystery. The quirkier the character, the more entertaining the story.
Even in a straight procedural like Law and Order, there are formulas you just can’t get around (the first suspect is never the killer, etc.) Might as well have the detective solve the crime by looking at the world cockeyed (in Elspeth’s case, literally titling her head and looking crookedly at a clue.)
My wife and I watched high Potential and, as mentioned, it’s pure fantasy but a likeable show. The original French version was on Hulu and I meant to catch at least an episode or two but never got around to it.
I recently finished both seasons of Elsbeth, and enjoyed it very much. Looking forward to S.3, which I’m pretty sure there will be.
One thing about Elsbeth I particularly enjoyed was that most episodes were not ‘whodunit’ but followed the Columbo ‘howcatchem’ formula-- where the killer is revealed at the start, and the show becomes a cat-and-mouse game between the protagonist and the killer. I’m surprised more ‘murder box’ type shows don’t employ this formula, since it’s fun to watch.
Because it postulates a wealthy killer, who is arrogant, but doesnt have a lawyer. Not many of those around. She doesnt catch gang-bangers doing drive bys or any of the more common killers.
I am also confused by the OP. Is there a question?
If that’s what you like maybe stick to documentaries? Entertainment shows like to show things that are entertaining. Actual police work isn’t entertaining. It’s mostly a boring slog interspersed with some action. Makes for a bad Tv show. Elsbeth is an entertainment program that showcases interesting crimes along with a lot of big name guest stars. It’s not trying to be realistic. If you don’t like it that’s fine but every cop show on tv is unrealistic in different ways.
Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries is a great show out of Australia. She’s cool because she’s also a millionaire adventurer. There’s a spin-off, Miss Fisher’s Modern Mysteries which takes place in the 60s. It’s not as good but they do keep with the girl power theme.
On the other side of the gender line, we watch the British version of Professor T, a guy with more hangups than a pay phone. The guy is so OCD he could find dust in Monk’s apartment. The trouble with the show is, the newer stories are weak. Sometimes they aren’t even a mystery. Any competent detective could solve it, and there is nothing that requires the unique perspective of a neuro-atypical detective. Plus the whole long-drawn out story arc about his father’s suicide (or…was it?) is boring and pointless.
We also like Van Der Valk. But I’m not sure being a silent jerk is really neuro-divergent. There was a good line in an early Airwolf episode, where a character asks the taciturn Hawke, “Do you still expect people to read your silences?” You could use that on Piet Van Der Valk, too.
