Fave tecs list looking dicky
TV LIST shows exist just to wind us up – as Britain’s Favourite Detective proved.
ITV blanked some of the small screen’s finest dicks – Jack Regan, Theo Kojak, Vic Mackey – to concoct this monstrous miscarriage of justice.
The result was as frustrating as every third episode of Sherlock.
Superb telly tecs like Andy Sipowicz (NYPD Blue), Law & Order’s Robert Goren, CSI’s Gilbert “Gil” Grissom, Monk and Harry Bosch weren’t even in the running.
Cagney & Lacey got through as “women who happened to be detectives”, but not Starsky & Hutch.
And were Scott & Bailey really more impressive than Frank Pembleton from Homicide: Life On The Streets, arguably TV’s greatest black detective? Wouldn’t ITV viewers think more of Gene Hunt, or Bradley Walsh’s unmentioned Ronnie Brooks?
You don’t need Miss Marple to work out that producers rig shows like this, deciding who we can vote for. The only surprise was they didn’t fix it for
Marcella to scrape in. They did book a narrator who couldn’t pronounce names properly, though.
Poirot was “Parro” and Suchet became “Shoe-Shey” according to Sheridan Smith.
Sherlock walked it, natch. Even though the scripts are fool’s gold. They jerk about like a dropped high-pressure hose, splattering in all directions but rarely making sense.
The writers would rather show off how smart they are than tell a decent
story. Which is why, as ideal Holmes go, Cumberbatch isn’t a patch on Jeremy Brett.
My favourite TV sleuth was Columbo whose scruffy appearance concealed an Einstein-sized brain.
When he shuffled back in that rotten crumpled raincoat to innocently ask the killer, “Just one more thing...” you knew the jig was up.
But the greatest thief-taker of them all was DI Regan. All together: “Get yer trousers on – you’re nicked!”