Six British Mystery Shows Youll Want to Binge On This Weekend

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Hellin Kay

Photo: Colin Hutton / © BBC/Hartswood Filmas / Courtesy: Everett Collection

Like layering or brewing the perfect pot of tea, TV mysteries are just another thing that the British just do better. The shows are twistier, grittier, wittier, and just more fun, while remaining highbrow (but, of course).

Examples: The modern day update Sherlock, starring the rakish Benedict Cumberbatch with an assist from a ballsier Watson played by Martin Freeman; Broadchurch, which was so good that Fox is re-making the exact same show, but with mainly American actors; and the Dame Helen Mirren-starring Prime Suspect, which you've already binge watched, right?

The only downside to British TV shows is their short seasons. Season three of Sherlock, which premieres on Sunday, January 19, runs for only three episodes—albeit 90-minute long ones, but still. With our supersized American palates, we're used to our 13 to 23 episode-long runs, dammit! So if you're a Brit TV mystery addict like me and are in the midst of a serious withdrawal, go on a bender with one or all of these six stellar shows. And say goodbye to your weekend because they're all available to stream on Netflix.

Related: Your Holiday Netflix Binge List

The Inspector Lynley Mysteries

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Hellin Kay

Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection

In this Scotland Yard-set series, the male-female detective dynamic gets a classist twist with the partnership of super posh Detective Thomas Lynley (played by Nathaniel Parker) and working class 99-percenter, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers (played by Sharon Small). Over the course of six seasons, the duo solves crimes in and around scenic London—from swanky boarding schools to lush country estates—and explore hierarchies between gender and class. The most fun part: You get a sneak peek at early now-famous-in-America guest stars, including a pre-Superman Henry Cavill (British teeth and all) playing a scrawny schoolboy, and in another episode, an apparently always-hunky Idris Elba and baby-faced James McAvoy engaging in a very genteel fistfight.

Luther

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Hellin Kay

Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection

Speaking of Idris Elba, he recently starred in a suspenseful police series of his own, which you may have caught on BBC America. Right now everyone is freaking out over the star after blockbusters like Pacific Rim and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, but real fans already know his awesomeness from watching Luther first. In a follow up to his role as the ruthless drug dealer Russell "Stringer" Bell on The Wire, Elba plays John Luther, a broody and, dare I say, morally compromised police detective working in the British version of a "Major Case Squad." And Luther has issues. His wife left him, he's prone to scary bouts of violence, and he has loads of addictive chemistry with a sexy serial killer played by Ruth Wilson. The show only ran for three seasons, but the creator is teasing a feature film version.

Foyle's War

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Hellin Kay

Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection

Along with mystery shows, no one does a period piece like the Brits (Downton Abbey anyone?). Foyle's War is set in the small seaside town of Hastings during World War II. The main character, Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle (played by the excellent Michael Kitchen) solves local crimes along with his female driver Sam Stewart (played by the excellently named Honeysuckle Weeks) and Detective Seargent Paul Milner (played by Anthony Howell). While the show is set in the mid-to-late '40s, the plotlines and underlying messages of each episode draw analogies relevant to today's headlines— spying, racial and ethnic profiling, and a returning prisoner of war storyline with echoes of Abu Ghraib, to name a few. Keep an eye out for the dashing young man who plays Foyle's fighter pilot son, Andrew (played by Julian Ovenden). You'll soon see him trying to get with Lady Mary on this season of Downton Abbey.

Inspector Lewis

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Hellin Kay

Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection

If your parents were Masterpiece Theatre geeks like mine, you may have grown up with the Inspector Morse series playing in your living room. But for the millennial Anglophile TV generation, we have Inspector Lewis, with Morse's sidekick Inspector Lewis (played by Kevin Whately) as the lead crime solver. The series is set in Oxford and for once, England isn't rainy all the time. The show's main attraction is the chemistry between its two leads, who don't just play to the typical old guy/young newbie tropes. Working class Lewis—complete with a Geordie accent—partners and banters with the junior, introspective Detective Sergeant James Hathaway (played by Laurence Fox). Hathaway's fancy Cambridge degree and earlier stint as an aspiring priest give the duo an edge up on those intellectually esoteric twists that tend to pop up during Oxford-based murders. And another aesthetic bonus: Hathaway has quite possibly the best skinny suit and tailored coat collection in all of British crime TV. Burberry Prorsum, perhaps?

The Bletchley Circle

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Hellin Kay

Photo: PBS/courtesy Everett Collection

The first season of this post-World War II London power girl series centers on a group of former code-breakers—like they used math, formulas, and their brilliant female brains to help defeat the Germans—who've gone back to their boring, unfulfilling, and generally oppressed lives. When a spat of serial killings hits the headlines, now-stay-at-home mother of two Susan (played by Anna Maxwell Martin) gathers her all-girl gang of former code-breaking colleagues—rebellious waitress Millie (Rachel Stirling), librarian (Julie Graham), and timid housewife with a photographic memory Lucy (Sophie Rundle)— to break the pattern and find the perp. Keep in mind these female code-breakers were part of top-secret covert wartime operations, so the men in their lives have no clue about their stellar skills. So along with trying to catch a psycho killer, the foursome also has to battle chauvinism and gender discrimination. The series was green lit for a second season.

The Fall

Set in current day Belfast, The Fall is a nail-biting, psychological thriller pitting Scotland Yard's Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson against the aforementioned terrifying murderer Paul Spector. Before you get riled up, that's not actually a spoiler because viewers see who the killer is from the beginning. This setup allows for a suspenseful cat-and-mouse game that threads through the entire season and allows for a slow-burning deep dive into what makes the adversaries on the opposite sides of the law tick. Oh, and did I mention Spector is played by Jamie Dornan (aka soon to be Christian Grey)?

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