Not to Really Encourage Anyone to Watch TV, But...

Was very excited to read this on BBC  News today:

Cracker, starring Robbie Coltrane, will return to ITV in the autumn after a 10-year gap. 

Anyone who is familiar with "Cracker' hopefully is as pleased as I am with this news.  Anyone who doesn't know of Cracker, if you are a fan of *well done* TV mysteries, take the chance to see this show when you can.  Anyone who is a fan of 'House, M.D.' should probably enjoy Cracker just as much; Coltrain's character isn't quite as deliberately nasty as House is (well, not on a perpetual basis) but he has a similar roughness to him.  So if these are coming back to ITV in the Autumn, the question is when am I going to get my mits on them on my side of The Pond? 

I think in mystery works, probably more than any other genre, the ability of the author to engage the audience through the main character(s) has to be key.  It has to be someone you want to follow along with, and someone you will enjoy even if the actual mystery doesn't really engage you.  I've always been a fan of Raymond Chandler's writing,mostly becuase I like reading along with Marlowe and getting his view of the world.  It's actually fairly difficult to actually follow the mystery in Chandler often; even he got lost within his tales.  In a famous incident from the filming of "The Big Sleep", Howard Hawkes and his team couldn't figure out what had happened with one of the minor characters.  Stumped, they called Chandler for enlightenment.  Raymond Chandler said he didn't have a clue what happened to the character either.  So when you see the Bogart/Bacall version of the film, you will notice one character that is murdered, mentioned, and then never brought up again.  And, as a fan, I am simply amused by this becuase ultimately it doesn't take anything away from my enjoyment of the story. (And yes, this red herring does come from the book - you can't solve it although a lot of Chandler fans have enjoyed speculating on it).

But, as there is absolutely nothing of value on TV now, I'll just go pop in the Monty Python DVDs and do a little art work for the rest of the night.