After paying Amazon $1.99 for each of the first six episodes of Scott and Bailey (which I'm liking very much), and after a few years, off and on Netflix, I discovered that these great Britist series are available for free on Sidereel and Hulu. Who knew?
Apparently, plenty of people--just not me, until today. So I'm passing the word.
Like Doc Martin and so many excellent British series, this one increases my desire to travel to the U.K. I want to stay long enough to meet to meet some people in England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland--the latter of which is still, as of last week, part of the kingdom.
Even with murders on Scott and Bailey, (at least one of which every episode), there's such a realistic balance between the perpetrators and the detectives. When someone "goes off" and kills a paramour who's been rude or abusive or unfaithful, it's likely that one of the female detectives is having a similar issue in her life--though she doesn't resort to killing him. That kind of mirroring occurs frequently in this brilliantly-written series.
This show, as in most BBC mysteries, shows investigators as polite, without guns. When the detectives knock at a door, they ask the suspect, "Could we just talk to you for a few minutes as part of an enquiry we are conducting?" Or--even when it's quite clear that the suspect is the one they're after--"Since you are the last person to have seen the man alive, we're trying to work out where he might have gone after he left the pub. Could you please help us out a bit, Love?"
The banter between the two detectives and with their female boss, Gill, is delightful. After a courteous conversation with a really sleazy, uncooperative and criminal murder suspect, one says to the other, "Don't you hate being polite to shitbags?"
The subtle humor and interactions and bumblings of the professionals--these are some of the qualities that make this series so good.
At one point, an older detective calls Gill to say that she's at that moment on the ground with yet another dead body. Gill asks her, "What do you want?" and the older woman says,"Your radiant fragrant presence, Love."
Certain evidence is "as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike," Gill says when rejecting certain offerings from her underlings in the police department.
Since watching so many British detective series, I'm picking up certain linguistic habits myself. Like calling people "Love." (I notice I do that a lot, especially with children.) I rarely run into murderers, so I don't go that far--but I like that very British term of endearment. It is--as I might say if I were one of them--brilliant!
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