I’m not the only one who has Dept. Q fever!
I was chatting with a friend of mine the other day, an Irish actor named Ciaran Byrne who has been in a million crime things, but is also a connoisseur of UK mystery shows. We were talking about some of our favorite crime shows to come out of Europe (particularly Ireland and the British isles). We chatted about Dept. Q and Prime Suspect and Love/Hate and various gritty, bleak, bleary procedurals and mysteries, featuring determined but weary characters solving impossible local crimes. But when we were trading recommendations, he suggested a few deep cuts that even I hadn’t heard of… so I thought I should share them with you, to tide you over while we wait for Season 2 of Dept. Q to arrive
These are deep cuts, not merely your Broadchurches and your Happy Valleys. I hadn’t even heard of these six. Ciaran told me, “these are shows that I have seen and know to be good. I’m not just throwing out rando titles.” So I had my endorsement, and immediately checked them out.
Here they are! Join me!
The Missing
From Harry and Jack Williams comes The Missing, a show whose first season chronicles the search for an English boy who disappears while his family is on holiday in France in 2006, attending the World Cup. The late, great Tchéky Karyo plays Julien Baptiste, the brilliant French detective who comes out of retirement to lead the investigation. And guess who else is in it? My girl Fiona Shaw!!!!
Baptiste
There’s a second season to The Missing, but there’s also the spinoff, Baptiste, in which Julien visits Amsterdam with his wife, daughter, and son-in-law while recovering from a brain tumor and an uncharacteristic loss of faith (in himself), when he is hired to find a missing sex worker.
Blue Lights
The Belfast-set series is about three probationary Police Service of Northern Ireland officers, all unconventional in their own ways, as they navigate the worlds of the police and crime, which, in Belfast, is stuck in the long shadow of The Troubles.
Trapped
Ólafur Darri Ólafsson stars in this Icelandic series, whose first season is about officers who try to solve a baffling crime before a terrible storm descends on their small town.
Sherwood
Lesley Manville stars in this series examining tensions in a post-Brexit Britain, about a Nottinghamshire mining village that is rocked when not one but two killings occur.
