Tag: British Television

Above Suspicion

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In my book, Prime Suspect is one of the greatest police procedurals ever televised. It is a brilliant, nuanced series that made Helen Mirren a star. Above Suspicion was created, and largely written by Lynda La Plante, who did the same for Prime Suspect. It covers similar ground, following an ambitious woman police officer solving crimes and battling sexism. It is more modern and, as you can read in my review, not as good. But it stars Kelly Reilly and Ciaran Hinds and that alone makes it worth watching.

Line of Duty: Series Two

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I randomly started watching Line of Duty again the other day. It remains an incredibly solid bit of crime television. It isn’t quite up to Prestige TV (whatever that means) standards, but it is a really good procedural.

I don’t remember watching Series Two back in the day, but I guess I did as I wrote a review. Not sure where in its many seasons I actually did stop watching. Keeley Hawes is in Series Two so I definitely got to get through my rewatch of Series One so I can catch her in action again. I loved her in Ashes to Ashes.

My review can be read here.

Mapp & Lucia: The Complete Collection

mappand lucia

I’m a sucker for British television. The wife and I usually subscribe to Acorn or Britbox – both streaming services focus on British shows. They make great murder mysteries, crime dramas, and comedies. British comedy is its own genre. It is so very different than American comedic sensibilities.

Mapp & Lucia is a very British comedy. I loved it when I reviewed the series out on DVD back in 2014.

The Secret of Crickley Hall (2012)

the secret of crickley hall poster

As I’m slowly making my way through all the reviews I’ve written for Cinema Sentries I regularly find movies and television series that I have only the vaguest memories of ever watching. This is one of those things. I watched The Secret of Crickley Hall and reviewed it back in 2013, nearly 10 years ago. That in itself kind of blows my mind. I have a very fuzzy memory of receiving the DVDs for this, but I could not tell you the first thing about it.

Reading my review it seems I didn’t really like this series. It also makes me scratch my head because I begin with an admission that I don’t like ghost stories, and I love ghost stories. I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote that. I also didn’t know who Suranne Jones was at the time and I’ve since come to admire her as an actress (she’s fantastic in Scott & Bailey).

Anyway, you can read my thoughts about it from ten years ago here.