Just because it’s not Indian doesn’t mean it’s not interesting! And both of these are solid well-made productions that I think folks here might enjoy, if they are looking for solid well-made productions.

Bosch

Bosch is a well-made police procedural with season long arcs. Our hero is an LA detective, he has a partner, a boss, friends and fellow cops around the office, a whole world. The world building of the show is really well done, things like a random reporter who keeps popping up in various cases, or an FBI agent friend who is a main character one season, and then is just a phone call and a 5 minute scene in another.

It’s worth watching simply for that, well done police show. But what makes me, someone who generally doesn’t like police shows, keep coming back to it are two factors that stand out.

First is the father-daughter relationship. In the first season, it seemed like your typical “distant cop father/teenage daughter” relationship. He was always being nagged to go visit her, her Mom had primary custody, etc. etc. But then this relationship has turned into the one solid through line of the show. She spends a summer with him, and then he ends up being her primary parent. They have rules about dinner together every night, they talk honestly about all kinds of things, there is no judgement. But at the same time, it is still a parent-child relationship. She presents things for his approval and listens to his opinions, he worries about her and lets her make mistakes. It’s just so refreshing to see a father and daughter who sincerely like each other, and respect each other, and love each other without big sappy fake scenes no one would really do.

And second is the ultimate lesson that the system works if you work out. In this last season SPOILERS the female lieutenant has to deal with harassment at the workplace (fake nude photos of her spread around). She does some investigating and hears all kinds of terrible stories from other female cops who didn’t report it and didn’t want to report it. She gets advice to just let it go, don’t take it seriously, etc. etc. Her girlfriend tells her to just quit, or sue and take a settlement. And instead she keeps investigating it like the crime it is, keeps reporting and documenting each incident, and prevails. The scumbags are arrested because their behavior eventually crossed the line into breaking laws. And she gets a promotion. END SPOILERS It doesn’t feel like wish fulfillment, it feels like hope. There are laws in place, there are procedures, use them as tools don’t see them as barriers. And when someone tells you that you can’t do something, that something is impossible, figure out a way (within the rules) to make it possible. We have so many cop shows, and medical shows, and all kinds of shows that normalize hopelessness. That say “don’t even bother fighting back, just shut up, nothing will change”. This show, in every season, has had a moment where it looked like injustice would triumph. And it didn’t simply because people calmly kept their heads down and kept working the system until it worked.

Anyway, if you want a police procedural with a hopeful message about justice prevailing, and a really great father-daughter slow burn relationship, watch Bosch!

Modern Miss Fisher Mysteries

Miss Fisher Mysteries is an Australian series set in the 1920s that came out a while ago and finished off with a movie maybe 2 years ago. Honestly, I could never really get into that series. The clothes were amazing, but the heroine was just too perfect for me. She is this fabulously rich woman who has done everything and been anywhere and now has returned to Sydney to solve mysteries. She can fly a plane, she posed nude for painters in Paris, she is a worldclass race car driver, etc. etc. It was just too much for me, I couldn’t relate.

Modern Miss Fisher, totally different! Like Bosch, there’s two hooks to it for me. Maybe I always need two hooks in a pop culture thing? So when I tire of one element, there’s another?

First, Modern Miss Fisher is NOT perfect and fabulous and done everything. She is a poor girl from a trailer park who left school at 15 to start working and has had dozens of jobs, and no relatives after her mother died. Out of nowhere, she gets a letter telling her that she had a rich aunt she never knew about and she has inherited her aunt’s house, car, and clothes. And, potentially, her aunt’s membership in the “Adventuress Club”. And role as the in house detective. Seeing someone who has had to struggle her whole life suddenly enjoying being rich, seeing her try to navigate this world of successful women and celebrities, and seeing her finding her feet as a detective, that is all waaaaaaaaaay more dramatically interesting to me than seeing someone come forth perfect from the start. Plus, the romance! The Modern Miss Fisher is flirty and shy and giddy with her young man, she isn’t some sophisticate with dozens of relationships behind her, and this is a couple that could actually grow together and change each other. Especially in the 1960s, when gender roles were starting to be seriously questioned. And he is super SUPER handsome.

Second, it is a show that directly deals with first wave versus second wave feminism. The Adventuress Club is made up of middle-aged woman who are single and successful and Tough. The only way they could see to be successful in their field was by forming an all female support system, by excluding men from their lives. Now here is young Peregrine Fisher, who was always unhappy with the restrictions on her as a woman but didn’t seriously think of any other way. She is discovering her own ambitions, her own freedom, from the other women. But also questioning if the way they live, separate and strong, is the only way to be.

If you like 60s Mod clothing, silly fun murder mysteries, feminism, and hot dudes with Australian accents, check it out!