I am a great fan of Hercule Poirot and "ze leetle grey cells".

David Suchet is a brilliant actor and captures the essence of Agatha Christie's character.

He adds some lovely touches of his own, like always dabbing his lips with a napkin even after taking a sip of wine.

Living with someone so fastidious in real life would drive you mad. But on TV, he is very enjoyable.

Am also enjoying Murdoch Mysteries, though I wish William and Julia would get their shite sorted.....

Me, too. Also Kojack - Telly Savalas.

Did you ever catch the Maigret series with Michael Gambon? Available on DVD.
I'm old enough to remember the series with Rupert Davies in the 1960s, which I think was black & white, adding to the atmosphere. Don't think it has ever gone to DVD . . .probably lost.

Peter Freedman wrote on Sep 26^th, 2013 at 5:38pm:


He certainly does. David Suchet brings a touch of Kabuki to this role.

Agatha Christie bores me senseless, but the show Poirot really brings it to life - with an almost Dadaist/Surrealist edge to it.

My all time favourite, however, is Columbo. It wasn't great TV, but the protagonist  showed that niceness and decency always gets your man.

It was a unique antithesis to the post-Watergate, noir-style detective genre in the 1970s, typified so well in the character of Dirty Harry. Dirty Harry pointed out the corruption in the system - that only lone rebels pushed to the edge could stand against it.

This was a popular theme in the aftermath of Vietnam and the political assassinations and social upheaval of the 1960s. In Australia, the TV show Prisoner espoused similar values, but with a feminist pitch. In Prisoner, female convicts were the protagonists - the most powerless in the system. Their crimes were the result of the system - domestic violence, corrupt cops, bad men. Prisoner, however, showed that change was possible by reforming the system.

Dirty Harry, on the other hand, was distinctly libertarian. It highlighted the impossibility of social reform - government itself was the enemy. Before long, Reagan was elected in the US, and Hawke/Keating came to power in Australia, two administrations/governments that reformed their countries in their own directions, shaped distinctly by the values of their time and place.

But the values of Columbo, I think, are the most realistic. If you want to get things done - if you want to shape things and create real change - be like Columbo. Always nice, always friendly, always listening for clues. Columbo was no vigilante,  he worked firmly within the system. Colombo was the system - his hat and trenchcoat a nod to the crime genre, but not gumshoe fiction, not film noir.

The image of Columbo, short and untidy in his cheap clothes and hat, standing in front of a row of uniformed New York cops and holding up his badge outside a New York brownstone is classic Warner Brothers. Calling all cars. Come out with your hands up. There is nothing innovative about Columbo. Columbo is the system personified, but with his own values and characteristics.

Columbo showed that you get places by calmly and patiently plodding away. This value is the essence of the police procedural, a genre who's recent incarnation in The Wire, is about the city, the methodical process of policing, and the importance of relationships. As a genre, the police procedural is stridently anti-hero, and Columbo showed this well. The no-heroes message is constantly reinforced in The Wire.

Dirty Harry was about the lone vigilante standing up against the corruption of the city - film-noir detective values. Columbo and The Wire are the very opposite of this. They're about police working together - communities solving crime through hard work and patience. These are the values of the police procedural.

Dirty Harry's tight mod suits versus Columbo's baggy grey flannel - the very essence of film-noir style versus procedurals. The hare versus the tortoise.

But for my money, Columbo's tactics do it every time. If you want to get things done, forget Dirty Harry and be like Columbo. Patient, respectful, engaging - a cop who knows his beat. Columbo works within the system to get things done, but he's tricky, unpredictable, and you never know where he'll end up.

They always are, of course. From the classic detective fiction of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, the thrill of this genre is the unpredictable ride - in the capable hands of the seemingly omniscient protagonist.

The trick, I think, is to make that omniscience seem human. Poirot does this by abstracting the central character and focusing on minute character details. This is the pleasure of period dramas - their otherness. The mustache wax, gaters, antique manners and customs. Poirot gives its audience a sense of historical discovery and nostalgia.

Police procedurals are much more realist. The latest Danish crime dramas do this by returning to the darkness of the city - its political corruption and the brutality of organized crime. Realism itself is a trope. From the crime films of Warner Brothers to British realism and the films of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, realism has an edge. The greyness of Danish crime procedurals references the pre-colour films of the genre.

What Columbo did was add an element of niceness to this genre - which roped in the little old ladies and worked perfectly for TV. But the niceness was a game. Columbo showed that niceness and patience is the essence of proceedure - the method of discovery.

Poirot also does this - with a surreal coldness - but these values, I think, are incredibly important in a genre which is, from its inception with Sherlock Holmes, about the scientific method.

The trick is to humanize these values and make them work as drama, and this is the art of good detective fiction.

Steve McGarrett's look was definitely based on Dirty Harry.

I liked Colombo though I remember it as something of a comic strip, like most American shows. Rebus was a good character and 'waking the dead' was great. But the best should be still to come; I'm thinking Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch. Stephen Tompkinson as Alan Banks.... I think the jury is still out on that, but Robinson is up there with Connelly as a writer. 


Update : Here we go - http://www.deadline.com/2013/06/amazon-orders-cop-drama-pilot-based-on-michael-connellys-harry-bosch-novels/

What’s interesting is how quickly they date. I remember loving Cracker in the 1990s, but watched it a few years later and wasn’t nearly as impressed.

The Wire is also fading from realism. The world has moved on from the War On Terror and US-centrism. I’m waiting for the genre to be picked up in China.

The British crime shows bore me to tears. Friday night fodder. Australian cop shows are little more than soaps. Cop Shop, Blue Heelers, Water Rats.

Actually, an Indian police procedural would be brilliant. A focus on corruption, business, politics, development and the Indian city could really change India.

A smart, well-written crime series could suit the Indian Zeitgeist now. Maybe they even have one.