I was frustrated after I botched my recent post about the showing of “The Thin Man” on PBS recently, but that was like passing wind in a hurricane compared to how stupid I felt when I discovered that TPT had been showing one of my favorite British detective programs for quite some time.  I am an unabashed Anglophile, especially when it comes to British television.  I come by it in two ways, first by heritage, and second by having been spoiled while I was living in the San Francisco area where we could see three local PBS stations – each of them very good in their own way.  But I digress.

The show in question is called “New Tricks”, which revolves around a special unit that primarily investigates cold cases.  The squad is made up of three “old dogs” – retired detectives with ages of experience and an uncanny ability to suss out the missing pieces of the cases they’re handed.  They’re old pros who know where all the bodies are buried, and who buried them – whether the good guys or the bad guys.  It’s a textbook example of a show that’s mentally challenging, character-drived, and often funny as hell.

The cast (from left to right) consists of: Brian, the emotionally troubled detective with a near-photographic memory for cops, crooks, and crime statistics; Sandra, the smart and sassy leader of the squad who turned a no-win situation into an amazingly effective team; Jack, the clear-thinking anchor of the team who often talks out cases with his beloved late wife Mary while standing over her grave in his back patio; and Gerry (down front), the thrice-divorced cowboy with a sketchy history, whose not afraid to bend a rule here and there.

It’s showing at 9PM on Saturdays on TPT Life – channel 2.3 over the air, channel 13 on Comcast Minneapolis, and channel 17 on Comcast St. Paul.

Another little gem from the British Isles has returned to TPT called “Black Books”.  This is definitely not your conventional sitcom.  These folks are well and truly bonkers.  From the BBC’s blurb:

“Bernard Black is grumpy, very grumpy. He does not understand the ordinary world and has created his own safe haven within the grubby confines of the shop. Bernard is driven by his own alcohol-fuelled logic and anyone attempting to buy a book from him is more likely to meet with the full force of his foul temper than they are to leave his shop with a purchase. Bernard loves his books and hates his customers. Bernard’s devotion to the twin pleasures of drunkenness and willful antagonism deepens and enriches both his life and that of Manny, his assistant. Bearded, gentle, sweet and good, Manny is punished by Bernard relentlessly for the crime of existing. They depend on each other for meaning as Fran, their oldest friend, depends on them for distraction. Bereft of her loathed business concerns, Fran struggles to find significance in between struggling to find her cigarettes and reasons for another drink.”

“Black Books” is showing on TPT Channel 2 at 10PM or 10:30PM on Mondays and Thursdays.

For those not going out on the town tonight, there’s one of my favorite movies playing on PBS (Channel 2, locally) – “The Thin Man”, starring the dashing William Powell and the beautiful Myrna Loy.  Based (loosely) on the novel by Dashiell Hammett, the story revolves around Nick and Nora Charles.  Nick is a former private detective who retired when he married Nora in order to handle the businesses she inherited which made her stinking rich.  Produced in 1934, Charles examplify the country’s Depression-era vision of the lifestyle of the wealthy class, living in a luxury apartment, travelling incessantly, and never missing an opportunity to have a drink, but they are both very down-to-earth.  “Earthy” sort of says it all, as a matter of fact, when it comes to the dialogue between Nick and Nora.  The couple’s clever banter in the screenplay is often risque for the time, and Nora gives as good as she gets.

The story revolves around an eccentric inventor, Clyde Wynant, who leaves town to do some work in isolation, but doesn’t tell anyone where he’s going.  Wynant is divorced, and is seeing a gold-digging vamp, Julia Wolfe, whom he suspects has been stealing his money.  When Wynant doesn’t return, his daughter Dorothy asks Nick to investigate.  Nick refuses, saying he’s retired, but gets dragged into the case when Wynant becomes suspected of murdering Julia Wolfe and Dorothy tries to protect him by confessing to the crime.  Nora convinces Nick that he has to solve the case, if only to protect Dorothy, and naturally does her best to help him in his sleuthing.

The movie’s plot hardly matters, it’s the characters that make this movie a treat.  Nick is constantly running into minor villains that he’d had sent to jail, and they all treat him like a long lost friend, much to Nora’s amazement.  Between the villains and the Wynant family, there’s no shortage of suspects.  The mystery ends when Nick gathers them all together and cross-examines them until one of them slips up in classic detective fiction style.  The movie was so popular that they made a total of six “Thin Man” movies, and Powell and Loy were so popular that Hollywood paired them in no less than twelve movies together.  The movie shows tonight at 8PM on Channel 2 and PBS stations around the country, followed by one of the sequels.  If you watch the first one, I guarantee you’ll watch the second.