I think I’ve asked about this before, and gotten some great suggestions. Now we need some more! My wife loves the Agatha Christie ones (Poirot, Miss Marple), but those aren’t my favorites. “Episodic” means every episode is self-contained, or at most there are occasional 2 episode arcs, rather than season-long manhunts and storylines. Here are some of the ones both my wife and I have enjoyed (most are British, I believe, but we’re open to any source):
Vera (my favorite!)
Morse/Lewis/Endeavor
Wycliffe
A Touch of Frost
Strike
Monk
Columbo
Dalziel and Pascoe
Also seen Rebus and Cracker – both were pretty good, but we didn’t finish them for various reasons. What else should we watch? We have Acorn, Britbox, Netflix, and Amazon Prime (and Disney+, if it has any of these).
Check out Murdoch Mysteries, a current series set in Toronto circa 1900, featuring a somewhat nerdy Detective with a lot of anachronistic ideas about police work. There are B-plot story arcs (largely about Murdoch’s on-and-off relationship with Dr. Julia Ogden) and recurring characters and the occasional two-parter, but most of the episodes are fairly self-contained.
200 episodes and counting, so that should keep you entertained for a while.
Murdoch Mysteries is a great suggestion. Great characters and they have a lot of fun with the time. Hell, you even get William Shatner as Mark Twain eventually.
Look for Death in Paradise, show about an UK DI working on a Caribbean Island.
My wife likes Father Brown, its not bad.
**Psych **is a very comedic one, though the main character is annoying.
What? No Midsomer Murders? Deadliest county in Britain!
BritBox only has S8 of Death in Paradise at the moment. If you can find the rest, they are quite in line with your request. Each episode even has a “parlor scene” where the mystery is wrapped up.
Others worth checking out on BritBox:
*The Last Detective
The Doctor Blake Mysteries
Shakespeare & Hathaway
Cadfael
*
We (wife and I) also enjoyed Silent Witness, though it’s more of a procedural.
There aren’t very many episodes, but Sherlock is very good. (Benedict Cumberbatch updated version of Sherlock Holmes stories)
And I third the Murdoch Mysteries recommendation.
I think Castle is fairly self contained (it’s been a while since I watched). It’s on the lighter side.
Also, a little outside your parameters but it’s very good: The Bletchly Circle. Two related miniseries. The first miniseries is 3 episodes, all dealing with one mystery. The second miniseries is 4 episodes.
Mr. & Mrs. Murder (a shame it was only one series) The Brokenwood Mysteries
Pie in the Sky
Foyle’s War
Single Handed
Hamish Macbeth
Acorn is also showing a new Australian show, My Life Is Murder, starring Lucy Lawless. Only one series, but I think it’s been renewed.
My wife and I are also on the lookout for episodic mysteries. Murdoch Mysteries didn’t really click with us; we found the anachronisms too jarring. I may have to take another look.
Castle’s episodes are mostly self-contained, yes. There are a couple of recurring multi-season story arcs (one about Beckett’s mother’s death, the other about a serial killer), and, IIRC, most of the seasons had a couple of episodes featuring one or the other of those arcs. (Those episodes also tended to be more serious than average for the series.)
That said – speaking as someone who loved that show, the final couple of seasons were a disappointment. The show’s creator (Andrew Marlowe) departed from the role of showrunner, the writing went downhill, and it became clear that the two leads were increasingly unhappy working together. If you watch it, stop with Season 6.
I would only note that as with all of the Law & Order universe, there are long-running arc stories which underpin the episodic A plots of each episode. Very occasionally, they can result in a very confusing situation when the arc story becomes the A plot. This is especially problematic with Criminal Intent, which has several episodes which would border on incomprehensibility if you don’t know, for example, who Nicole Wallace is.
Agatha Raisin is a great caper series, currently on Acorn, which is not dissimilar to Father Brown and Shakespeare and Hathaway, but with a slightly better budget.
Wait, Cadfael is on Britbox? I have a subscription to Britbox and never knew that! I’m going to have to look for it.
I recommend Vera (even though she keeps swapping out hunky assistants)
Hetty Waintrhopp, though they’re kind of … small town England quaint.
The Doctor Blake Mysteries, set right after World War II in Australia (though it peters out at the end because the lead actor was accused of sexual misconduct and they had to cut production short)
The Coroner, set in a small south England town
I’m watching Maigret right now, though it’s funny that all of the French characters are played by English actors. Set in the 50s, in Paris, starring Mister Bean in a dramatic role.
I agree with you, but every modern show thinks it needs and arc. I hate it, but what ya gonna do? At least their’s aren’t too long. The Closer got this problem, too, with that damn Turrell Baylor arc, and Philip Stroh. And Kitty.
As long as the viewer thinks “Moriarty” every time they hear “Nicole Wallace”, they’ll be good to go.
The original Law & Order didn’t seem to have arcs, for the most part. Mostly episodes were self-contained, which makes it great for watching reruns. And there was a UK adaption, which BBC America aired at one point. Some episodes were adapted from the US original.
And if you like British mysteries, another good one, although limited, is Unforgotten. Three series of six episodes each, focusing on a long-dead body and how the detectives trace who the victim was and who the killer is. I also liked The Tunnel, an adaption of the Scandinavian program The Bridge.
Two arcs I remember from The original* Law & Order * were Lieutenant Van Buren suing the NYPD for discrimination and Van Buren having cancer in the last season.
Definitely agree with Murdoch Mysteries and Death in Paradise. There are a few Murdoch movies with different actors - not nearly as good.
Two things that haven’t been mentioned - New Tricks, which comes from the same people who later did Death in Paradise. It is about a special unsolved crimes unit staffed by retired police. The original cast is by far the best.
We’re watching a show called Murder In … which is set in France. Each episode has different characters and is set in a different, scenic, location. Each episode we’ve seen so far has a male detective assigned to the region and is teamed with a woman detective, prosecutor or whatever. Pretty good mysteries and good bantering before the final, inevitable, smooch.
On MHz you can see Detective Montalbano, set in Sicily, a German production of the Brunetti mysteries set in Venice. We even saw a few episodes of a series set in Istanbul.
