The Rise Of The Binge Monster! (Part 1)

 I hate binge watching.

This makes me the weirdo in my family.  (OK, it’s ONE of the reasons why I’m the weirdo in my family). I can’t get excited about watching episode after episode of a television show, or a video series, or a movie franchise.  Even my favorites need to take a rest after an episode or two.  Gotta do something else, watch something else.

Then came the Pandemic.

Covid-19 messed with our lives in a lot of ways.  It made me a binge watcher.  Now there were a lot of things that went it that, like my jobs shutting down (I work for the local school district and I’m a rideshare driver).  Add in the mental fugue state that descended, and I needed some way to escape from everything.

So I sat in my favorite chair and just…watched.

As someone who loves the media this was not the worst thing that could happen to me.  Lots of time to explore all kinds of programs in as much depth as I desired.  Given that this is the streaming media age, it meant I had access to more stuff than any other time in history.  Movies from a hundred plus years of film making around the world.  Television shows from half that span.  Plus all the specialty streaming services dedicated to all kinds of niche stuff.

Where to start?

I chose British TV.  I knew I liked what I’d seen up till then.  Monty Python, “Fawlty Towers”, “Dr. Who”, “Keeping Up Appearances”, “As Time Goes By”, “The Vicar of Dibley”, “Masterpiece Theater”, “Are You Being Served?”, “All Creatures Great and Small”.  Sure, it was a limited sample, but it seemed a likely place to start.  If it bored me, there were still many other options.

Two years later, I’m still watching (though not binging anymore).  So let’s see what I discovered.  

First, there is a LOT of great television out there from the other side of the Atlantic.  Which is not to say that I liked everything.  Some English comedy didn’t grab me, and some of the dramas were just as lame as American TV.  But the best of both were amazing.  I’ll skip the mediocrities and just hit the highlights in no particular order.

Midsomer Murders – Welcome to the murder capital of the universe!  This quiet English rural county has a murder rate that makes the Wild West look like a Victorian tea party.  Still in production, is the rare, perhaps even unique, case of a show that remains popular even after replacing ALL the main characters.  John Nettles played DCI Tom Barnaby for 14 seasons.  He was replaced by Neil Dudgeon who played Barnaby’s cousin, DCI John Barnaby from 2011 onward.  And the show didn’t miss a beat!  Lighthearted and fun, despite the body count, “Midsomer Murders” is a lot of fun.  I’m looking forward to catching season 23.

Doc Martin – A brilliant, cantankerous surgeon leaves his big city practice for a small Cornish village.  The reason for the move is every bit as odd as the doctor himself.  the residents of Portwenn don’t quite understand the new doctor but he slowly finds a place.  Martin Clunes is brilliant as Martin Ellingham, and is surrounded by an outstanding supporting cast as the eccentric locals.  While it’s never addressed directly, it’s pretty clear that the doctor falls somewhere on the autism spectrum. I’m waiting on the final season of this one.

DCI Banks – Time to get some intensity on this list!  With “DCI Banks” we get a gritty police procedural set in the grim English north.  Does the sun EVER shine in Yorkshire?  Based on this show, it appears the answer is no.  It feels like the entire series is shot in shades of black and gray. Stephen Tompkinson’s Alan Banks isn’t a Holmesian genius, but a slow, relentless copper, whose personal life is a mess.  I’m not always a big fan of this kind of program, but “DCI Banks” pulled me in.

Vera – Here’s another long running and beloved series.  Centering on the frumpy, grumpy DCI Vera Stanhope, the series offers a nice balance of serious mystery solving with a bit of fun.  Vera (played to perfection by Brenda Blethyn) is part grumbling, nit picking boss and part mother hen to her squad of officers. 

Heartbeat – A 1960’s period piece about police work in Yorkshire.  The show ran for 18 seasons and is very much a small town kind of story.  Local coppers dealing with small town issues.  It was the characters that grabbed me and kept me coming back.  It was popular enough that it spun off a show about the hospital serving the area.  The Royal lasted eight seasons and is worth the watch as well.  It gives this franchise 20+ years of watching to binge!

This next batch didn’t have the kind of long runs the previous shows did/do, but I enjoyed them all and watched every available episode. 

New Tricks – An interesting concept.  The police department brings back a bunch of retired detectives to sift through the cold case files.  This is a classic “grumpy old men” series with the three retired officers bring plenty of baggage.  This series brings plenty of lighthearted fun with its crime solving.

Cadfael – Somehow, I’d missed this series with star Derek Jacoby as the mystery solving medieval monk.  The good brother Cadfael left his life as a Crusader behind for a quiet life in Adventure.  Adventure and mystery follow him.  Good fun.

 Pie In The Sky – This is police mystery is a bit of an oddball.  Detective Inspector Henry Crabbe wants to retire, but a sleazy superior officer scammed Henry into remaining “on-call”.  The true love of Crabbe’s life is cooking, and he serves as the meticulous and brilliant head chef at his wife’s restaurant “Pie in the Sky”.  So you get mysteries and some amazing food all at once.  Plus, the wonderful Richard Griffiths stars here.  How could I not love it?

There’s still plenty more shows I enjoyed, but I’ll take this up again next week.  And then finally, all this English TV led me to some amazing television elsewhere on the planet.  That includes the show I loved the most!