No bones about it, got to love a murder
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday February 26, 2011
AT 9PM last Sunday, 6.5 million Australians were watching a murder mystery. They weren't all tuned to the same murder mystery, of course, but they were unanimous in their devotion to sleuths in search of solutions, whether that sleuth was Jane Marple, Patrick Jane, Dr Temperance Brennan, Steve McGarrett or, on pay TV, Hercule Poirot, Inspector Kurt Wallander, or Lieutenant Anita Van Buren.At other times of the week, you could expand that list with such names as Richard Castle, Catherine Willows, Dr Cal Lightman, Gerry Standing, Detective Olivia Benson, Jethro Gibbs, David Rossi, DCI Tom Barnaby, Kalinda Sharma, Lieutenant Horatio Caine, DSS Stanley Wolfe, the Reagan family and, grudgingly, Dexter Morgan, who ends up solving more murders than he commits. And we really should include Gregory House, notionally a consulting physician but really a clone of Sherlock Holmes.Never mind the cook and the dieter. The Sleuth is the most powerful trope in Australian mass entertainment this year. But what does our fascination with crime-solving say about the nation in the second decade of the 21st century? Get ready for a theory, after you've examined these clues.Australia's favourite whodunits this month:1 Bones (7) 1.15 million viewers a week in the mainland capitals; 2 NCIS (10) 1.11m; 3 Underbelly Files (9) 1.11m; 4 Criminal Minds (7) 1.11m;5 New Tricks (ABC) 1.10m; 6 Agatha Christie's Miss Marple (ABC) 992,000; 7 CSI (9) 912,000; 8 The Mentalist(9) 893,000; 9 Agatha Christie's Poirot 883,000; 10 Hawaii Five-0 (10) 802,000; 11 Castle (7) 750,000;12 Midsomer Murders (ABC) 719,000; 13 Lie To Me (10) 639,000; 14 City Homicide 740,000; 15 Blue Bloods (10) 653,000; 16 Law and Order: SVU (10) 575,000; 17 Ashes to Ashes (ABC) 466,000; 18 NCIS Los Angeles (10) 460,000; 19 CSI Miami (9) 360,000.I'm sorry to slow the narrative flow by listing all the murder mysteries in the ratings top 100, but it makes my point: the prime-time schedule is packed to the rafters with crime and punishment. No other genre makes that many contributions.The newest arrivals, Hawaii Five-0 and Blue Bloods, started strongly but are sinking fast, because they are kinda dumb, telling one basic story in linear fashion each week with a bit of soap opera on the side. Same problem for the Australian entries, which tend to be plodding police procedurals, with breasts and jokes on the side. Their producers don't realise that crime connoisseurs are demanding. Whodunits need to be intellectually challenging as well as comforting.And the key word is comforting. Politics, locally and internationally, are turbulent and confusing. Every day brings greater risk that fundamentalists and fanatics will take over.Everything feels beyond our control, except the remote. We turn to television for escape - to the English midlands, the streets of Washington, the beaches of Miami, the carriages of the Orient Express - and for reassurance that any problem can be solved in one hour.To discuss the whodunit explosion, go to www. smh.com.au/opinion/blog/the-tribal-mind.
© 2011 Sydney Morning Herald
