Traveling by Tube

By ROB PATTERSON

I have neither time nor the means to travel as I’d like to lately. But thanks to streaming TV I can still see the world.

I haven’t done so via the Travel Channel, which is available on the Roku platform I use. Instead I’ve “traveled” via two of my favorite genres (closely related): mystery/detective shows and police procedurals (a number of which I’ve touted in my Populist Picks).

Most recently I hopped around Europe as I binged through the three seasons of Crossing Lines, a German, French, Italian and American collaborative production about a fictional criminal investigative unit that’s part of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague (which doesn’t actually do such investigations). If serious crimes cross borders in the European Union, they’re on the case, with members from various countries who specialize in different disciplines.

The show is a semi-successful mixed bag whose strongest element in the first two seasons is a character who’s a retired New York City cop who was wounded in the line of duty, and is addicted to morphine for the pain in his now partly disabled right arm. He’s played quite well by William Fichtner, one of those actors who you immediately recognize – he’s been in such films as Quiz Show, Heat, Contact, Armageddon, The Perfect Storm, Black Hawk Down, The Longest Yard, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Dark Knight, and Independence Day, to name but a few – but probably like me didn’t know who he was. Donald Sutherland almost sleepwalks through his role as the team’s ICC overseer.

Its travels around the continent could be a bit more scenic and its plots more unique. But I did enjoy the show for what it might have been. And it got me thinking on the many series I’ve been watching set in differing locales.

The Republic of Doyle is set in the picturesque seaside Canadian city of St. John’s, Newfoundland, which all but deserves character credit for its primary role in the comedy/drama about a father/son private detective agency. (But none of the episodes ever shows the location in the brutal local winter.) It’s a fun and charming series that provides a nice respite for an episode or two among your other viewing. And St. John’s may not be high on anyone’s tourist bucket list, but it sure has its appeal in the show.

Almost directly across the Atlantic is a somewhat similar old-school port town, Galway, Ireland, where the series Jack Taylor is set. The excellent drama starring Iain Glen from Game of Thrones about a former cop turned private investigator is enhanced by its setting. Also similar to The Republic of Doyle, its Galway setting is less a possible travel destination and more a look at where and how others live.

The same can also be said of Shetland, which takes place on the stark Scottish islands (though actually was largely filmed on the mainland). And of the small Swedish town of Ystad, the setting of the police procedural Wallender, which actually exists as two series – the English language BBC production starring Kenneth Branagh and a Swedish one (both based on Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander novels.

On the other side of the world, the breathtaking beauty of New Zealand almost overwhelms the drama in the first season of Top of the Lake, which stars Elisabeth Moss. Nearby in Australia, its second season set in Sydney as well the engaging police team procedural City Homicide in Melbourne show both how different and similar to us the Down Under locations are.

They say travel is broadening. And so is having your television series settings expanded.

Populist Picks

TV Movie: Archangel – More traveling on this three-part BBC drama, this time to Moscow and beyond in Russia, where a determined academic played by the invariably compelling Daniel Craig strives to solve a Stalin-era mystery with potential current day ramifications.

Music Album: Game Day by Peter Holsappple – He’s been a mainstay in two of my favorite bands, The dB’s and The Continental Drifters, as well as a hired tour gun with R.E.M. and Hootie & The Blowfish (and, full disclosure, is something of a friend of mine). Holsapple’s 16-song solo outing is rich with a variety of smart and relatable rock songs with a pop accent and musical and arrangement nuggets that make this set an appealing multiple spin.

Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email orca@prismnet.com.

From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2018

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