Mudtown

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My wife and I watch a lot of British television. We’re huge fans of what they call panel shows, which are basically game shows with comedians. But we also love a good British mystery or crime drama. We subscribe to BritBox, a British streaming service that provides loads of stuff. Some of it is good, some of it is garbage.

The difficulty is that I don’t see commercials for British television; I don’t know anyone or follow anyone on social media that regularly talks about British television. So I have no idea what’s good or what’s not.

Mudtown is pretty good.

Clare Lewis Jones (Erin Richards) is a volunteer magistrate in Newport, Wales. I don’t even know what that means. I guess they hear low-level court cases and make decisions like a judge, but maybe not on major crimes. English law is weird.

Anyway, she’s good at her job. But she’s got a dark past. When she was young, she ran around with a guy now known as ‘Saint Pete’ Burton (Tom Cullen), who saved her neck back then. Now he runs drugs and is an up-and-comer in the criminal community. She’s got a husband and two kids. The oldest, Beca (Lauren Morais), has started dating Sonny Higgins (Lloyd Meredith), who is Saint Pete’s right-hand man.

One night Beca is at a party with her high school chums at some old abandoned warehouse. Someone starts a fire that just so happens to burn up a bunch of Saint Pete’s money that he had stashed in the warehouse. Later, one of the kids finds himself shot.

Most of the show involves Saint Pete trying to find out who started the fire and Clare trying to keep Beca out of trouble. There is a lot of family drama (between Clare and her husband and daughter, and Saint Pete and his crew).

The acting is good, the cinematography is great, and the story mostly worked for me. We recently watched a couple of shows where the characters made absolutely stupid decisions, and I was thrilled that for most of this one they actually seemed relatively intelligent. It gets a little dumb by the final episode, but mostly this worked for me.

I especially appreciated how they played with the whole my kids in trouble trope. A lot of shows will put a kid into trouble, and they don’t actually care that much about the kid. It is just a plot point to drive our heroes into action. But here Beca is a real character, and they do some interesting things with her.

I’m definitely hoping for a season two.

Broadchurch: The Complete Season Two

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I’ve been a fan of David Tennant since I watched him in Doctor Who. I try to watch him in just about everything he does (but he does a lot of things, so I’m always way behind.) I caught him in the first season of Broadchurch right as it was airing. I think that was the first time I ever saw Olivia Colman in anything, but I immediately became a fan.

That first season was excellent. It was one of those murders in a small, picturesque British village type things that they’ve done a million times, but the writing was good and the acting was excellent.

I was worried that season two would do what a lot of these types of stories do when they get a second season and add yet another murder to solve in this same sleepy little village, but it circumvents that problem in interesting ways.

I never did get around to watching Season Three, but reading this old review makes me want to go through the entire thing again. You can read my review of Season Two here.

Murder in the First: The Complete First Season

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I used to write a lot more TV reviews. For a while, back when this blog was still young, I’d actually do what they now call recaps of different shows (running down the plots of single episodes and discussing their good and bad points.) Sometimes I wish I’d stuck with that, as it later became something you could actually make a living at. But it was a lot of work, and I stopped. But even after that, I did a lot of seasonal reviews when the DVDs came out.

I don’t do that anymore, but I keep thinking about it. In my continuing effort to write about all the arts I consume (and I really hate that word – consume – but it is hard to find a better one that fits all the arts), I may try and do more TV talking.

I hate to sound like a broken record as I’m posting all these old reviews, but I don’t remember this show at all. It sounds like it had a lot of potential but wound up being just another dumb cop show. You can read my review of it here.

Ripper Street: Season Three

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There is just too much TV to watch these days. I can’t keep up. I can’t even remember what I’m keeping up with. Ripper Street periodically pops up as a recommendation to me in my streaming feeds. Sometimes I think I ought to watch it. Apparently, I already have. At least the third season. Reading my review, I have the vaguest recollection of watching it. At least some of those plot points sound familiar. I don’t know if that means I should go back and watch the entire thing, or if I should just give up on it entirely. but I did like that third season, so that’s something.

Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators: Season Five

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We’re big fans of cozy British mysteries in my house. We watched a couple of episodes of the first season of Shakespeare and Hathaway a while back. It was charming, but we got distracted and didn’t return to it.

There was a bit of a thing that happened over at Cinema Sentries, and the person who was supposed to watch this DVD set of Season Five was unable to, so I decided I’d pitch in and help out.

There was no need to prep myself on all the episodes I missed; this isn’t that kind of series. It is about a couple of detectives who like to dress up and solve murders. It is very light and very silly and you can read my full review here.

The Night Manager: Season One

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The Night Manager is a rather slow but still thrilling spy series starring Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie, and Olivia Colman. It also introduced me to the wonderful Elizabeth Debicki. Weirdly, some ten years after the first season, a second one has dropped. I haven’t seen it but I quite liked the first one. I’m thinking I need to rewatch it before diving into the second one. You can read my review of Season One over at Cinema Sentries.

Little Murders by Agatha Christie

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There have been a million adaptations of Agatha Christie stories. This French television did something original with it. They essentially removed Christie’s detectives (Poirot, Miss Marple, etc.) and inserted two original characters while keeping the plots.

I reviewed this back in 2016 and haven’t watched it since, but I’m thinking it is time for a rewatch. You can read my full review here.

Happy Twin Peaks Day

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My wife and I were latecomers to Twin Peaks. I never watched it when it first ran. We picked it up sometime just after we first married, but we didn’t finish even the first season. But just about a year ago we watched it from beginning to end (you can read more about my thoughts here).

Most of the series revolves around the murder of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) and the authorities attempt to catch her killer. The pilot episode begins on February 24. We know this because Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) rolls into town and announces the date into a small recording device. This has become something of a meme for fans (as you can see in the image above), and so today has become Twin Peaks Day.

We decided to start a rewatch today. Watching that pilot episode now, which pretty much introduces us to all the various characters that fill Twin Peaks, knowing what is to come. Knowing who the murderer is. Knowing the absolute horror Laura Palmer will be subjected to really makes the pilot hit so much harder.

It is a great introduction to this series. It is funny and weird, heartbreaking and thrilling in equal measure. I can’t wait to catch all the details I missed the first time around.

The Midnight Cafe’s Top Five TV Shows of 2025

I suppose you all know me as a music and movie guy. I don’t write about television very much. That’s mostly because I don’t keep up with TV shows very well. I very rarely watch shows as they come out; I’m always behind. I also find writing about television tricky. But I do watch TV, and I love a lot of shows.

This year I actually made an effort to keep up with new TV and to watch more of it. So, I thought it would be fun to make a Top Five list of my favorites. Four of them are new series that debuted in 2025, and one of them is a little bit older, but it did run a new season this year. That was my one rule – the season that I’m talking about how to have run this year. Technically, show #4 originally aired in 2024, but that was in England; it didn’t air in the US until 2025, so I’m counting it. And here we go.

slow horses

5. Slow Horses: Season 5

Slow Horses is about an inept group of MI5 agents who have severely screwed up in one way or another (but not badly enough to actually get fired), and are now relegated to Slough House – a sort of detention center for screwups. It is run by Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), an unkempt, heavy-drinking, chain-smoking elder statesman who was once a great agent but is now sick of it all.

Each season naturally finds this team of goofballs solving a real, major case, almost by accident. Season Five finds them embroiled in a terrorist plot, an assassination attempt, and a group of incels. It is a tad overstuffed, and the characters are starting to drift from their designated personalities, but it more than makes up for those flaws with added comedy. Gary Oldman is a treasure, but the rest of the cast is wonderfully fun as well.

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4. Ludwig

David Mitchell’s comic persona is that of a well-educated, middle-class, slightly stuffy bloke who’d mostly like to be left alone. Ludwig was custom-made for that persona. He plays John Taylor, a reclusive puzzle maker whose twin brother is an Oxford police detective. When that brother disappears, his wife (Anna Maxwell Martin) calls upon John to help her find out what happened. Being identical twins, John pretends to be his brother initially to grab some notebooks from his desk at police headquarters. But quickly he’s swept up into a murder mystery. And because murder mysteries are like puzzles, he quickly solves it.

Each week brings a new murder, or puzzle, and John is able to solve it. Mitchell is an absolute delight, and the puzzles are great fun. I liked this season so much I almost immediately watched it again.

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3. Task

I’m a huge fan of crime dramas. I’m obviously not the only one, as there are approximately eight kajillion of them out there. And that’s the thing; the popularity of the genre means there is a blueprint for it. At their most basic, crime dramas involve someone committing a crime and someone else trying to catch them. There are all sorts of variations on that basic outline. And that’s the other thing; because there is a blueprint and because there are so many of them, crime dramas can feel like a comfortable pair of socks. You put them on, and as long as they keep your feet warm, you don’t really think about them again. You only notice them when they’ve got a hole in them or they are exceptionally warm and soft.

To wear out that metaphor, crime dramas are something you can throw on, enjoy, and never think about again. They are only memorable when they are exceptionally bad, or really good. The Task is excellent. Mark Ruffalo stars as Tom Brandis, an FBI agent who has been having a tough time of it lately. His family life is in chaos, and he’s suffered a recent personal tragedy. As such, we find him, at the start of the show, taking kind of a break. He’s off active duty and spends his work hours at job fairs recruiting for the FBI.

But then his boss calls to say she needs him to head up a task force to catch someone who’s been robbing drug houses run by a local biker gang. The show follows Brandis and his task force (made up of state, county, and local police) and the thief (an incredible Tom Pelphrey.) Task doesn’t do anything new with the genre, but everything is working at such a high level I have no complaints.

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2. The Pitt

It is impossible to talk about The Pitt without comparing it to ER. Both shows are set in emergency rooms and follow the absolute insanity that takes place there. Both are set inside teaching hospitals, so you get a mix of attending physicians, residents, beginners, and students. They were both produced by John Wells and R. Scott Gemmill, and they both star Noah Wylie. Each series also balances big, complicated cases with smaller, simpler ones, as well as their big emotional beats with more light-hearted ones.

The biggest difference between the two is that ER aired on NBC and The Pitt is an HBO show, which allows The Pitt to be more graphic (in its language, its gore, and its explicitness – at one point we get a close-up view of a doctor trying to pull a baby out of its mother’s vagina.) It is also set during one twelve-hour shift, with each episode lasting just under sixty minutes in length.

Much like Task, this show doesn’t necessarily do anything new with its genre, but it is so incredibly well produced, well made, and acted that after one season I’m just about ready to call it the best medical drama TV has ever produced. Even better, they’ve already shot the second season, and it airs early next year.

pluribus

1. Pluribus

Up until just today I was all set to make The Pitt my number one show of 2025. It is so good I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I watched it this past spring. I immediately loved Pluribus when it started airing last month, but I wasn’t ready to have it knock The Pitt off its (presumed) top spot. Then its season finale dropped this morning, and Holy Moly was I blown away.

This is a show that’s actually best watched if you know nothing about it. So I won’t talk about its plot so that you can come to it completely fresh. I will say it was created by Vince Gilligan (who also created Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul), and it stars Rhea Seehorn (who also starred in Better Call Saul). It is nothing like those two shows other than the production values are incredibly high and it never does what you expect it to do.

Every episode is surprising. I had absolutely no idea what it was going to do next, and yet I happily followed along. It is utterly original, unique, and brilliant. Seehorn is magnificent, and I love that her character feels completely real. She’s a hero, but utterly human, good but also selfish and flawed. I cannot wait for the next season to come out.

And that’s it. I won’t say these were the absolute best TV series that aired this past year. I didn’t watch every series that aired in 2025. Not even close. But these are five series I utterly enjoyed. What shows did you enjoy?

Doctor Who: The Horror of Fang Rock

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Doctor Who
The Horror of Fang Rock
Season 15, Story 92

The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Leela (Louise Jameson) accidentally land the TARDIS on Fang Rock, a small island off the southern coast of England. When The Doctor notices that the lighthouse is without a light, they go and investigate. Inside the lighthouse they discover a dead guy and two still living lighthouse keepers – Reuben (Colin Douglas) and Vince (John Abbott). They explain that just before The Doctor arrived, they saw a strange light crash into the sea, and ever since the power has been fluctuating as the temperature keeps dropping.

While The Doctor and Leela are investigating the rest of the lighthouse, someone or something moves the corpse. Then, because the lighthouse light keeps going out, a pleasure boat crashes into the rocks. It is owned by a snooty lord, and with him are a lady and two other men.

Legend has it many years ago a monster came to Fang Rock and killed two of the keepers and drove one mad. Now a new creature has arrived, but this time it is from outer space. It is known as a Ruton, and it thinks Earth might be a good strategic place to fight the Sontarans.

The Ruton is a round, blobby thing that looks a bit like an egg yolk with some streamers hanging off of it. Tis not the greatest of Classic Who monsters, I tell you that. The production team made the smart decision to keep it off-screen for the most part, and they made it a shape-shifter so sometimes it appears as the dead keeper.

I am a big fan of base-under-siege stories, and the lighthouse makes for a great setting. The Ruton is not a great villain, but for most of this series four parts, it is off base trying to get in. The addition of the rich, snobby people adds a nice touch of fear and hysteria to the proceedings, while the lighthouse keepers mostly keep it together.

It is a pretty dark story, and Tom Baker eases into that side of the character, showing very little concern for the other characters who keep getting themselves killed. It has been a while since I’ve seen any of the other Leela stories, but she does seem to be transitioning nicely from the “noble savage” she was when she first joined the Doctor to someone who relies a little more on her intelligence than her strength (though she still throws a knife nicely and wields an axe at one point during this story.)

I’ve seen this one many times. It has become one of my go-to Classic Doctor Who stories as it moves at a brisk pace, has a terrific little story, and finds Tom Baker in fine form.