TIME: "Top 10 Murder-Mystery Series"

[JamesG]

Top 10 Murder-Mystery Series
April 1, 2011


AMC's new crime drama "The Killing", which is adapted from a wildly popular Danish murder-mystery series, debuts this weekend.

TIME takes a look at other top television whodunits:





1. "Twin Peaks" (1990-1991)


David Lynch's masterly, albeit short-lived, "Twin Peaks" took the prime-time airwaves by storm during a captivating run of two seasons in 1990 and 1991.

The show's guiding mystery is the murder of the town's adored homecoming queen, Laura Palmer — an emotive conceit AMC's "The Killing" has co-opted in the advertising buildup ahead of its own debut.




But "Twin Peaks" is at once darker and more whimsical than your routine crime drama — like much of Lynch's oeuvre, there's a lurking, unfathomable terror lying behind the surface of everyday quiet American life, and in "Twin Peaks" this assumes an eerily supernatural character, brooding in the pine forests of the Pacific Northwest. T

he show's terrifically written and excellently acted, beginning with its lead protagonist, the eccentric, affable FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), and working its way through a cast of wonderfully real and quirky characters, from a bumbling sheriff's deputy to the unforgettable Log Lady.




Indeed, in "Twin Peaks", the "owls are not what they seem," and trust us, that's a good thing.










2. "Agatha Christie's Poirot" (1989-present)


Over the course of 12 seasons of "Agatha Christie's Poirot", there's been 'Murder in the Mews', 'Murder in Mesopotamia', 'Murder on the Orient Express', 'Death on the Nile' and an 'Appointment with Death'.

And much, much more.





Long before obsessive-compulsive Adrian Monk appeared on the screen, dapper Hercule Poirot wanted everything just so while he used his "little gray cells" to solve crimes.

David Suchet perfectly portrays the precise, eccentric Belgian detective in the British series, which premiered in 1989.




Christie's other famous sleuth was already familiar to TV viewers: Joan Hickson played elderly and unassuming Miss Marple in the BBC adaptations of the 1980s and early '90s.











3. "Murder, She Wrote" (1984-1996)


Perhaps an unlikely television star, Angela Lansbury — who didn't get into the TV business until age 59 — starred in "Murder, She Wrote" as the crime savvy, silver-haired, Jessica Fletcher.

Fletcher, a widow and retired English teacher, becomes a very successful mystery writer in her golden years, and gets the chance to solve real-life murders when people keep turning up dead in Cabot Cove, the quaint and quiet Maine coastal town she calls home.




She noses her way, as grandmothers do, into the police files and always manages to get their original suspect off the hook when she discovers some previously unknown clue.

She's smart, that Fletcher, and after a while the police start turning to her for advice.





Her crime-fighting skills helped make the television drama one of the most watched shows during the 12 years it was on the air.

For her part, Lansbury won four Golden Globes for best actress in a drama series for her performance.











4. "Red Riding" (2009)


The British television series (based on David Peace's Red Riding Quartet novels) follows a newspaper reporter and a detective as they attempt to solve a serial-murder case loosely derived from that of the real-life Yorkshire Ripper, who killed 13 women from 1975 until his arrest in 1981.

But there's much more to this show than a few dead bodies.



Rampant political corruption, dirty policemen and some seriously weird sexual fetishes combine to turn an otherwise straightforward whodunit into a gritty, twisted tale that highlights man at his worst.

This series is not for the squeamish.











5. "Columbo" (1968-2003)


Dubbed a "howcatchem" series rather than a whodunit show, nearly every episode of "Columbo" starts with a murder scene, revealing the perpetrator from the outset.

So the fun of the show — and the genius of actor Peter Falk's on-point delivery — is that we get to watch the culprit squirm, knowing exactly what he or she knows. All the while Columbo uses his sleuthing expertise to freak the offender out in every way he possibly can.



And just when the murderer thinks Columbo is backing off, the detective comes back with his famous line, "Oh, just one more thing."

It's no wonder that "Columbo" lasted (in several different incarnations) from 1968 until 2003.











6. "Prime Suspect" (1991-2006)


"Prime Suspect" was a hit British crime drama starring Helen Mirren, and its seven seasons, dispersed over two spells, lasted from the early 1990s into the 2000s.

TIME's TV critic James Poniewozik ranked it among the 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME in 2007.



Here's what he had to say:

"The title of this British series may have referred to the targets of crime investigations, but the chief person of interest was always detective Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren). A cop with a drinking problem and unstable relationships, Tennison was better at chasing down killers than her personal demons.

The series, created by writer Lynda La Plante, dealt with the special challenges Tennison faced as a woman officer — in one season, she has an abortion, which is neither condemned nor treated as a social statement — but not by making her a paragon. Tennison could be curt, volatile and simply unpleasant.

But her weaknesses also made her empathetic and intuitive. Acted with daring and honesty by Mirren, Tennison made strengths of her weaknesses."











7. "Monk" (2002-2009)


Murder meets comedy in the 2002-09 USA Network series "Monk".

It's star, Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub), suffers so badly from obsessive-compulsive disorder, it's a wonder how he's able to solve crimes so brilliantly.




The former San Francisco Police Department detective, turned private eye following the murder of his wife, Trudy, has 312 fears — from milk and ladybugs to harmonicas and heights.

Nevertheless he overcomes them all, and goes on to solve the mystery of who killed his wife in the series finale — an episode that garnered 9.4 million viewers.











8. "Cracker" (1993-1996)



This British series follows a psychologist named Fitz (played by Robbie Coltrane — you know, Hagrid from Harry Potter) who helps the police profile and question suspects.

He's a drunk, a gambler, a chain-smoker, a cheater and a lover of foul language. But he's brilliant, which makes his role as a cracker (another term for a criminal psychologist) that much more interesting.



Think of him as a Columbo gone bad, but just as smart.

The series won multiple awards and was beloved for Coltrane's depiction of the show's antihero.











9. "Veronica Mars" (2004-2007)


Who says that young, blond girls can't solve crimes?

The UPN teen drama (later picked up by the CW) was a smart, genre-defying series that mixed classic detective noir with a young girl's attempt to maneuver her way through a cliquish California high school.




The show's title character, Veronica Mars (played by Kristen Bell), is a normal teenager with a very abnormal life: after school, she works as a private eye. One minute she's fretting over boys, the next she's doing her homework while on a stakeout.

Each "Veronica Mars" episode contains one minimystery (finding a classmate's long-lost father, retrieving money stolen during a poker game) that Mars can easily answer as she focuses on her main task: solving the murder of her best friend.




"Veronica Mars" ran for just three seasons, from 2004 to 2007.

It earned favorable ratings and critical praise but was ultimately dropped by the CW for reasons we don't fully understand. If only there was someone who could help us figure that out.











10. "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1984-1994)


The classic tales of Sherlock Holmes have been reprised and reproduced multiple times on TV.

But the best might be the British series beginning in 1984 starring Jeremy Brett.



"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" recreated 13 of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories with great precision and detail, even recreating some of the illustrations that came with the original stories' publication.

Brett's portrayal of Holmes has remained one of the most popular and endearing, but the series is being challenged by the latest critically acclaimed Holmes production: the BBC's "Sherlock", in which Holmes gets a much needed update (and a smart phone).

http://www.time.com/time/specials/pa...062577,00.html