{"id":449,"date":"2026-06-16T13:10:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T13:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=449"},"modified":"2026-06-16T13:10:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T13:10:26","slug":"the-coziest-tv-mysteries-have-a-higher-calling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=449","title":{"rendered":"The coziest TV mysteries have a higher calling"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Recently I went with Hanh Nguyen, Salon\u2019s Executive Editor for Culture and Food, to the ATX Television Festival, where we enjoyed illuminating panels on all things TV, along with fun side missions. A favorite stop, sponsored by Britbox, invited participants to be digitally inserted into their favorite U.K. television genre based on their photos. Yes, yes, AI is evil. But as sins go, this one was tough for two diehard British mystery fans to resist.<\/p>

Read more Trump\u2019s \u201cwhite working class\u201d base may finally have had enough<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Eventually, we settled on a cliffside mystery frame:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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(BritBox)<\/span> AI illustration, courtesy of BritBox<\/p><\/div>\n

When it was time for my solo outing, I chose an archetype much closer to my heart: the cozy crime solver.<\/p>\n

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(BritBox)<\/span> AI illustration, courtesy of BritBox<\/p><\/div>\n

There are some things that the British simply do better. Cozy mysteries top that list. Where Americans think of graphically violent procedurals as comfort watches, the British prefer their TV homicides to be much tidier: Serious violence occurs offscreen. The cops are jaded and too easily steered toward the wrong suspects, moving the gentle citizen gumshoe to step in and offer her gifted expertise.<\/p>\n

These hobbyist hawkshaws view homicide cases as puzzles, while the people linked to them, guilty or innocent, are the tougher cases to crack. We have our own versions of such Agatha Christie-inspired sleuths; the \u201cOnly Murders in the Building\u201d trio immediately comes to mind as well as \u201cElsbeth\u201d and \u201cPoker Face,\u201d along with all manner of descendants of Jessica Fletcher from \u201cMurder, She Wrote.\u201d<\/p>\n

One character we haven\u2019t cracked as successfully as our U.K. cousins, however, is the clergyman detective \u2014 odd, given our culture\u2019s puritanical bent.<\/p>\n

Next to the likes of \u201cGrantchester,\u201d which has its 11th and final season making its stateside debut on \u201cMasterpiece,\u201d American TV\u2019s attempts to place an ecclesiastical spin on the murder mystery have been, shall we say, ineloquent.<\/p>\n

In his post-\u201cHappy Days\u201d run, Tom Bosley gave us three seasons of \u201cFather Dowling Mysteries\u201d on NBC and ABC. It was a very nice way to kill time with grandma, and not much more.<\/p>\n

Before that, Robert Blake \u2014 yes, that Robert Blake \u2014 battled street-level sin while wearing a clerical collar in the short-lived 1985 disaster \u201cHell Town,\u201d a show whose only saving grace is its kooky theme song performed by Sammy Davis Jr.<\/p>\n