No word on if it’s been renewed for this year but down in Australia there’s “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries”. First [del]season[/del] series is available on Netflix.
I can’t believe I wrote this! :smack:
It’s Touch, not Taste! D’oh!
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Ah. In that case, I’d recommend *Castle *and possibly Elementary.
Not that *Elementary *is particularly violent. I like it, but I’d like it a lot more if the lead character had an original name rather than Sherlock Holmes.
You didn’t specify that.
Anyway, most are available on DVD, Netflix, library…
Wait until they torture Ryan with the cold water head dunking. And Beckett gets shot in the chest. And Ryan and Espo trapped in the burning building. And Castle and Beckett getting pushed off a bridge in their car. And the shootout with Montgomery in the hangar.
Other than that…
JAQ, Castle fan
Rosemary and Thyme are two middle-aged, middle class English women who start a landscaping/gardening business and end up involved in all sorts of murders, usually with a gardening hook somewhere.
The epitome of ‘cosy’!
I’d email you my netflix list, but most of them have been mentioned.
A lot of them are a little too gentle - much like Murder, She Wrote.
If you want something, a bit grimmer, but just less bloody, consider the
Inspector Lynley series (I hated the novels, but rather liked the shows)
Wallander
Waking the Dead
Lillyhammer (I haven’t watched it, but I’d be interested to know what you think)
Vera (probably not what you’re looking for)
MI-5 (not terribly cerebral, but not too violent)
Jack Taylor (not what you asked for, I thought it was good)
You don’t just want British shows, you want shows Anglophiles like. You want WGBH Mystery! series.
The finale is coming in just a few days, but Psych is a non-gory detective show and has a lot of humor and witty dialogue, although the references tend to be to pop culture and not literature. The main character is a “psychic” detective who solves crimes with his amazing powers of observation. His relationships with his best friend/crime-solving partner, his father, and members of the local police force are all important parts of the show.
I did watch a few episodes of Psych. Kind of cute.
I’ve put Foyle’s War on my amazon prime watch list. I also put MI-5 on a watch list somewhere. Thanks to all for the suggestions. I’m going through amazon and netflix and snagging the ones mentioned. I guess most of the kind I’m looking for are going to turn out to be British.
Not necessarily looking for “cozy” although I’m not against it. It’s just that I like cerebral action more than shooting and car chases. I don’t mind murders-- hey, I’m a died [sic] in the wool L&O fan. But some police/crime shows are just tooooo difficult to watch. I started to watch a new one (maybe it’s already gone) called Low Winter Sun and in the opening episode a guy was beating up a women WHILE he was raping her. That’s a cheap shot and does not take the place of good writing. It’s calculated to get a reaction from the viewer. It got one from me: I changed the channel.
I tried Criminal Minds for a while 'cause I love Joe Mantegna, but then I realized I don’t want to know what’s inside a criminal’s mind. Mostly I like the ensemble and the relationships among the regular characters as long as the stories don’t veer too far off course into their personal lives. Which L&O:SVU has done and subsequently has driven me away.
Someone suggested MI-5. It’s a good show but I don’t think you’re going to like it if you’re looking for an absence of violence. It’s about spies and features murder, torture and explosions.
I’m not looking for no violence. I’m looking for a show that focuses on good characters and plots rather than lots of action and shock value.
If anime works, Case Closed/Detective Conan might do the trick.
It’s kinda like Encyclopedia Brown…only with murders. Grisly, yet at the same time still somehow lighthearted.
I would have LOVED this series as a kid. But I was the type who watched “Mystery!” just for the animated intro.
I have always liked NCIS, it is kind of like CSI but the workplace seems more real. The characters joke back and forth with each other and seem to have fun in bad situations. It is definitely more on the Law & Order side than Murder She Wrote but not as heavy as Criminal Minds or CSI.
I second both Murdoch Mysteries and Midsomer Murders.
I also recommend Father Brown, and Jonathan Creek.
See if you can get The Killing (3 series) and The Bridge (2 series) on DVD or streaming. These are not without violence and gore but are most definitely character and plot driven.
If you can get over the foreign language element* (they’re Danish/Swedish) you’re in for a treat.
- I was reluctant to watch them because of this, but actually I found that watching with subtitles immersed me in the story even more, and I’m now hooked on all things in the “Nordic Noir” genre.
I loved the 1994 series Due South.
“The cases of a cynical American police detective and a upright Royal Canadian Mounted Police constable in the city of Chicago.”
The series are so morally uplifting, and yet not cheesy or preachy at all, that I plan to let those be the first police series I’ll let my kid watch. From one of the user reviews:
Well, the nice thing about MI-5 (called Spooks in the original UK broadcast) is that within the first few episodes, you’ll know if it’s too much for you.
And ninjas!