New season crime TV

A new year brings with it new television programming and if you are a fan of crime fiction this year has begun with a host of top series.

On Sky Living, Criminal Minds is now on its ninth series and is as dark and disturbing as ever. It features the Behavioural Analysis Unit of the F.B.I who hunt down serial killers using psychological profiling. Among the dreadful deaths, the light relief comes from the wonderful Kirsten Vangsness as Penny Garcia the team’s IT expert. Her bright clothes and snappy banter are the prefect counterpoint to the serious work of the team as they get inside the twisted mind of the killers.

At the other end of the spectrum is the lightweight but no less enjoyable Castle on Alibi. Much of the success of this show is down to the onscreen relationship between Richard Castle and his now fiancée Kate Beckett. Nathan Fillion as Castle and Stana Katic as Beckett are ably supported by Seamus Dever as Keven Ryan and Jon Huertas as Javier Esposito. The scripts range from terrorists and political shenanigans to plots where zombies or vampires appear to be stalking the streets of New York. It’s a perfect mix and Castle is a show where you can switch off and just enjoy the story.

Silent Witness is back on BBC One and there have been some major changes. After the death of Professor Dalton at the end of the previous series, the Lyell Centre has a new boss, Thomas Chamberlain. In the initial episodes of the series, he has played almost no part in the investigations and appears to have an entirely managerial role. It is a huge shift from the hands-on approach of his predecessor and I’m not sure it works. Another bizarre change is in Dr Nikki Alexander played by Emilia Fox. In previous series she could be seen wearing Laura Ashley-style print dresses and was the very picture of a respectable English woman but this year she’s had a makeover. Wearing tight trousers, her hair cut shorter and a sassier attitude might make her character more American and help may work better with focus groups but it is such a conspicuous change, with no explanation that it’s as if she is a completely different person. The stories so far have been filled with the kind of malevolence and violence as we’ve come to expect from one of the most edgy crime dramas produced by the BBC.

Sherlock’s three-programme run has already come and gone on BBC One. The stories were as complex and twisted as ever, drifting further from the canon of Conan Doyle’s original stories but it doesn’t matter. Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss have created a brilliantly modern take on the old master. A large part of the success of the show is down to Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman who bring to life the characters of Holmes and Watson in a way that is thoroughly contemporary and yet totally recognisable to those of us who love the books. It is a shame that we are limited to just three programmes per series but the time-constraints on the actors and Moffatt (who both writes and is the lead producer for Doctor Who) mean we have to be content with Sherlock in small doses.

2014 has started well, let’s hope there are plenty more delights along the way.

Elementary, my dear reader

He’s 126 years old, famed throughout the world and is still one of the most beloved and engaging characters ever to investigate a crime. Sherlock Holmes has outlived not only his creator but also some of the people who have portrayed him on TV and in films. What is it about Sherlock Holmes that still fascinates modern readers and viewers?

As I write, Sherlock Holmes features in two TV series, one on either side of the Atlantic as well as a series of pretty awful movies directed by Guy Ritchie. (Holmes as an action hero, not a good idea.) Jonny Lee Miller stars in Elementary and Benedict Cumberbatch is the lead in the BBC’s excellent Sherlock. Both series bring Sherlock and Dr Watson into the 21st century with consummate skill. The American version departs from Conan Doyle’s stories to set Holmes up as a modern TV detective albeit one with a soaring intellect, real drugs problem and a friend called Joan Watson. Lucy Liu plays the female sidekick and it works really well. Steven Moffat who writes the UK version used the original material as a starting point to reimagine the stories for the modern era. Both TV shows are excellent and capture the spirit of those original novels and their characters.

There are other TV characters with similar traits to Holmes that have a devoted following. Gregory House is a rude, abrupt and brilliant doctor, who the creators admit is completely influenced by Holmes. Patrick Jane in The Mentalist is a consulting detective with the ability to read people from apparently trivial information. Would they be as popular without the Holmes influences at their heart?

It’s not only on screen that Holmes is captivating people once again. Anthony Horowitz has written a brand new Holmes novel called The House of Silk. It is a brilliantly authentic tale but with very modern concerns at the heart of it. If you are a lover of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories you will love The House Of Silk.

So with all this focus on the great detective, why do we still find him so interesting? His brusque manner, lack of social graces and general intellectual superiority are not qualities we would appreciate in a real person but I believe those are the very things that attract us to him. We all wish that we could be as insightful and brilliant as Holmes when he reads a person’s life from a few clues. If we were so intelligent, would we suffer fools gladly? Probably not. His disdain for the normal rules of society means he can say all the things we wish we had the courage to; those times when we use white lies to protect people’s feelings, Holmes says what he thinks and doesn’t care for the consequences. All of these characteristics make him wonderful to watch and magical to read.

I wonder how many modern detectives will still be entrancing readers and viewers in 126 years time? I’m pretty sure Sherlock Holmes will be.