Solving Crimes the Old Fashioned Way

I have stumbled upon a recent trend, or at least recent to me, of crime drama, detective drama, sleuthing television shows set in an era without DNA results, maspectrometers or anything else we now expect to solve crimes. I have wondered why this is trend and I believe I know.

When CSI (Vegas) premiered over 15 years ago, it set into motion the “CSI effect” with juries all over the country. Today’s savvy jury member holds the prosecution accountable for solving crimes with forensic science and all the other devices that appear in the subsequent crime solving shows like the CSI sequels, Bones and NCIS incarnations. The prosecution obviously has access to all this technology and therefore should have an iron clad case and that is not always so. Are we now over stimulated with all this? Is there nothing new that forensic science can bring us other than TV shows making up their own devices? That would be called science fiction. With those questions in mind and all that being said – where is there to go to make it interesting to watch? Only one place. The past.

I found myself watching these shows set in the past and didn’t even realize what the appeal was except it is the appeal that Sherlock and Elementary have – crime solving with actual deduction rather than technology.

Murdoch Mysteries (The Artful Detective) set in early 1900s (Toronto), Ripper Street set in 1889 (London), The Pinkertons set in 1860s (American West) and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries set in 1929 (Melbourne) all have this appeal of the past. The advantage these shows also have is history. They can delve into actual cases and historical events to move a plot line along. There is some basic fingerprinting methods, autopsy results and microscope usage but that is not the answer to everything instead it is what is used to back up theories of the crime. How these lead characters solve crimes is often looked at with confusion and even dismissed by fellow law enforcement types and even lawyers because it is new and unusual thinking and fledgling forensic methods.

Murdoch Mysteries, in its 8^th season, also known as The Artful Detective in the U.S., follows Detective William Murdoch in Toronto and often delves into the history of the times. This history is very important especially when it touches on the temperance movement, women’s suffrage and the progress that arrives in the way of the automobile and even wiring homes for electricity. There are also visits from President Roosevelt, Mark Twain and even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to move along a plot line. The writers have fun with Murdoch and his odd ways of solving crimes and interacting with others. There is an episode where Doyle decides Murdoch can solve crimes brilliantly but would not be an appealing character for his next book or the episode where Murdoch has gained such notoriety as a crime solver that he has his own fan club. The fun of the show is the crime solving and how Murdoch’s “Holmes” like mind bends things around.

Ripper Street, in its 3^rd season, is set the year after the unsolved Jack the Ripper murders, Detective Inspector Edmund Reid of the H Division of White Chapel and his department is still under scrutiny over the case never being solved.  This show has a lot more drama than the others with a multitude of characters and intertwined relationships. There is, of course, a murder or some other bad event that must be solved. Reid has a keen sense of people and can read them easily, skills which serve him well as he delves into the ultra-seedy neighborhood he works in. He is obviously educated and well brought up and tries to keep himself above the cruel experiences he endures. This is a dark serial series but one that has appeal for the same reasons as the others.

The Pinkertons follows members of the Pinkerton Detective Agency founded by Alan Pinkerton in 1850 and is set in the American West in the early 1860s. Alan Pinkerton’s son and a female detective run the operation out of a mining town. These Pinkerton detectives solve crimes like murder, robbery and corporate espionage. The female detective is the one with the cool head for solving crimes and does the basic forensic work that was available for the times. The show has only been on one season and in spite of what the Pinkerton name eventually meant (as they turned into and were famous for as strike breakers, union infiltrators and as security for mines and factories) the show has potential for more crime solving of the old west.  (There is a Pinkerton in Ripper Street that is an unsavory character with more than questionable morals for a law man).

I could surely write a much longer post if I were to delve fully into Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, in its 3^rd season. Never has sleuthing been so much fun! This show follows the Honorable Phryne Fisher, “lady detective” and Detective Inspector Jack Robinson as they solve murders in all walks of society. Miss Fisher is also surrounded by a cast of characters, reminiscent of Holmes and his Baker Street Irregulars, who assist her in her crime solving. This is also a time when the “modern woman” of post war Europe was coming into her own with driving a car, having her own money and knowing her own mind. The men she is surrounded by must often bow down to her overbearing insistence of being correct about a person or a case. What other’s chalk up to “woman’s intuition,” we can chalk up to Miss Fisher’s intelligence as well as her skilled way of reading people. Her partnership with Robinson is also fun to watch. As others are shocked by Miss Fisher’s promiscuity, mindfulness and devil may care attitude, Robinson rolls his eyes and just continues talking. The phone will ring at the station house and he will be told its Miss Fisher on the line, his response, “Is someone dead yet?” She seems to have this uncanny way of showing up at a crime scene and taking it over. This show is a pure delight and just ran its third season in Australia.

Perhaps delving into crime solving of the past connects us more with the human element that we like to see in any good TV series. With people spending most of their time staring at screens of all sizes, we are losing the human connection with each other. I believe it is this human connection that will bring us justice or save us from injustice. Give me a sharp mind over a sharp piece of tech any day.