Foyle's War

[Silver Bullet]

Season Four of this show is back on tv.  It's showing tonight (Sunday) on PBS Mystery.

This is a terrific show.  I've watched a lot of British mystery series, almost all of which I enjoy (Holmes, Poirot, Lynley, Maigret, Morse, Dalgliesh, Rosemary and Thyme, Midsomer, and others) and this may be the best, other than A&E's Nero Wolfe.

The protagonist is a British police detective who gets involved in murders in a World War II setting.  The last episode was 1942, I think. 

What makes this show so good is the early 1940s ambience, which seems to me to be dead on, and that the writers aren't afraid to show some ambiguity in the moral issues.  For example, in one of the first episodes the killer turned out to be an American weapons manufacturer whose products were keeping the British alive.  If he was put in jail, presumably a much greater number of British citizens and soldiers would die.

[Stickjockey]

Oh, yeah. I so dig Foyle's War. Not so sure about the ambiguity thing, though. At the end of the episode with the American businessman, DCS Foyle makes it abundantly clear that his hands are tied by the Powers that Be, and that once the war is over, the American is as good as nicked if he even thinks about coming back to England. It's more of a "justice delayed due to matters of national survival" thing.

[K Frame]

I couldn't get into Foyle's War. It was OK, but I like The Murder Rooms a LOT more.

[Silver Bullet]

Hmmm, last night's episode was a little too low-key, but still good.  It's the first episode in a while that didn't have soldiers.  Last week's episode had lotsa soldiers and some yank-vs-limey sentiment.  At the end of last night's show they previewed the next episode, but it wasn't clear to me if it will be on next Sunday.

Meanwhile ... for anyone who watched but had gnawing questions (food rations will do that to you), here's a nice description:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foyle%27s_War

Mike, are you referring to The Murder Rooms with Holmes and Watson ?  Netflix shows two different entries with that name.

[Stickjockey]

IIRC, Murder Rooms is the fictional story of Arthur Conan Doyle and his mentor, whose name escapes me at the moment but who was the inspiration for the Sherlock Holmes character. Also a really good show, but for different reasons than FW.

[K Frame]

Dr. Joseph Bell

[Stickjockey]

That's him!

[Cosmoline]

Meh.  I miss the manic Victorian energy of Jeremy Brett's Holmes.  Back in the good old days when civilian gentlemen packed serious heat in London.  I can't stay awake for Foyle's War.  I'll have to look into the Murder Rooms.

[Silver Bullet]

Back in the good old days when civilian gentlemen packed serious heat in London.

The soldiers pack serious heat in Foyle's War.  Maybe some of them are gentlemen.   

[Cosmoline]

Yeah, but it's wartime Britain.  I guess some see that as an example of pluck and tenacity.  I see it as the end of freedom.  They pretty much nationalized everything during the war, and the way was paved for the socialists to take over afterwards.  Victorian England seems much more familiar to me, and much more admirable.  The streets were wild and you had to live by your wits.  There was no social safety net.  For a cunning man the sky was the limit, for good or evil.  If you had the audacity you could quite literally go take large parts of Africa for yourself. 

[Silver Bullet]

I suspect the streets are wilder now, but, you're right:  at least then a man could defend himself.

[Cosmoline]

London of today is clean, tame and meek.  Every corner has a CCTV.  The people are basically children, getting in childish brawls at the pubs.  The authorities work hard to keep them away from anything sharp. 

[jnojr]

I have Foyle's War in my Netflix queue.

I also liked Prime Suspect with Helen Mirren.

[Silver Bullet]

London of today is clean, tame and meek.

That's not what I read over at THR and TFL.   

[Silver Bullet]

I also liked Prime Suspect with Helen Mirren.

I got a couple minutes.   

Here's my ratings of shows that mostly fall in the British mystery genre.

10   Nero Wolfe   A&E production, with Timothy Hutton

9   Foyles War   with Michael Kitchen
9   Sherlock Holmes   with Jeremy Brett

8   Hercule Poirot   with David Suchet
8   P. D. James Dalgliesh    with Roy Marsden

7   Inspector Lynley Mysteries   interesting look at class warfare
7   Miss Marple    the classic example of this genre

6   Rosemary and Thyme   fluffy show, but endearing lead characters
6   Campion     stylish rich amateur detective; a bit of a dandy
6   Peter Wimsey    stylish rich amateur detective; a bit of a dandy

5   Morse    marked down for his nanny-state, anti-gun attitudes
5   Prime Suspect    marked down for unrelenting urban tension

4   Murder She Wrote    marked down for too many silly annoying characters

3   Somerville Murders   lead character is not interesting
3   Mrs. Bradley    sarcasm does not equal wit

2   Maigret    not enough there there to even complain about

I thought about adding Lovejoy to this list, but I think of it as more of a caper show than a mystery.

A lot of these are an acquired taste, on the dry side.   If youre looking for car chases, you might be interested in the A-Team, another caper show.

Almost all of the ones I rated 6 or higher take place in the early 20th century.  Almost all the ones I rated 5 or lower have modern day settings.  Maybe Im influenced by the more civilized settings of earlier times.

They almost all take place in England.  Maigret is set in France, Murder She Wrote is generally in New England, and Nero Wolfe is set in Manhattan.  You notice that none of these takes place in Phoenix, proving once again that the places with the most gun control have the most crime !

Actually, there is a crime mystery show that is set in Phoenix currently on the air, but Im listing shows that follow the British mystery formula or are based on crime mystery novels.