When even Downton's Mrs Hughes turns to cosy crime, we are in TV hell
Now, despite this disliking of the soft crime genre, Logan is set to star in her own series Murder Most Puzzling. This suggests two things. She fancies the idea of fronting a telly series for the first time more than she dislikes the conceit. And you don't need to be a TV sleuth to work out that having your name on top of the titles guarantees a nice little earner.
Phyllis Logan in Downton Abbey with Jim Carter (Image: free)We don't know the specific reasons why the one-time head housekeeper Mrs Hughes in Downton doesn't like cosy crime drama, as she said in the Radio Times, but surely she suspects the genre to be an oxymoron. As we all know, crime isn't cosy at all. It's horrific, often featuring acts of evil. Yet, television insists on re-producing nonsensical daftness, knowing that some (OK, some millions) of viewers buy into a formula that's older than Agatha Christie's Remington.
What is the formula? First, find yourself a nice location. Beaches are always good. A paradise island even better. But then nice libraries in upstate New York can work well, as can a country cottage in the Cotswolds. What you will never, ever see is a cosy crime series set in a Glasgow close, just a few yards away from the shooting gallery, or in an Edinburgh housing scheme in which triple glazed windows can't keep out the sound of feral teenagers revving stolen motorbikes.
Second, the central character has to be rather odd, eccentric. And never, ever sexy. (Ashley Jensen however is such a good actor she was able to suggest a hint of sexiness in Agatha Raisin.) That's why the cosy crime series are fronted by the likes of unkempt priests, (Father Brown) strident nuns (Sister Boniface), duffel-coated curly-haired magicians (Jonathan Creek) and chubby head chefs turned shamus (Pie in the Sky).
Cosy crime also has its own murdering preferences. Such as poison. Blowdarts are popular, or bullets fashioned from ice. And one episode saw a woman off her husband with a head blow, using a leg of lamb. (Which was then cooked and served up to investigating police officers).
TV companies know of course they are serving up silliness. But so often they argue that these marshmallow-soft crime series are actually good for the public health.
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No, honestly. They tell us that by accepting the idea of some old biddy with a twinset and a typewriter being able to solve the mysteries that leave professional detectives clueless, this is actually good for our mental health. It offers the chance to wild swim in a world that doesn't exist; yes, a world of criminality, but it never ever asks us to view a bloody or battered body (far less a dismemberment).
Sure, there are murderers, but they are very often tidy, middle-aged men with a butterfly collection, who wear Roger Moore polo necks and enjoy an exclusive gym membership, and are married to community artist Penny, who is having a secret affair with her pickleball coach. And these cosy crime stories always feature storylines that are tied up in a bow so cute it could have been worn by Elton's wedding chihuahua as it clipped up the aisle with the couple's wedding rings inside the little bejewelled box on its back.
The storylines may feature the odd tale about catfishing, or Ponzi schemes or crypto currency, but they almost never feature the backdrop to the real world we're facing, tales, for example of frozen pensioners who have to choose between food or one bar on the electric fire.
Indeed, when viewers switch on to watch the likes of Hetty or Agathy, they can escape into a nice uncluttered clear space far from reality, a space that exists only between the ears of TV commissioning editors. Remember the daft, absurd alternative universe that was Bergerac, with its running storyline whereby an island's top cop was daft about a known diamond thief? Unbelievable. Even though the jewel snatcher was played by Liza Goddard.
Phyllis Logan in Lovejoy with Ian McShane (Image: free) So, Phyllis is right to open up about her lack of love for the genre. But let's go further. It should be deemed a crime to continue to reproduce cosy crime. Any writer who even contemplates the creation of a series in which the central character wears cardigans, Bermuda shirts, drives a Triumph roadster or tippy taps at a vintage typewriter should be taken in for questioning.
Yes, yes. I know I once wrote a TV crit singing the praises of Ludwig. But that wasn't a cosy crime drama, was it? Okay, I know, that like Logan's new character he was also a puzzle solver. But his twin brother, whom he impersonated, was a cop. So that made it all right, didn't it.
Oh, come on. It can't be a crime to watch any series which features Anna Maxwell Martin. Can it?
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