The best mystery shows of 2020
Brendon Connelly | On 28, Dec 2020
Nothing says “dark winter nights” like curling up with a good mystery box set. As 2020 draws to a close, our resident super-sleuth pores back over the past 12 months of TV and deduces the best puzzling, gripping and entertaining mystery of the year:
Home Before Dark
Watch on: Apple TV+
Although it’s ostensibly based upon the true story of Hilde Lysiak, a defiant, pint-sized journalist, this Apple TV+ series is securely fixed in a decades-long tradition of kid detective yarns. The mystery elements wobble regularly but the cast, especially The Florida Project’s Brooklynn Prince as the fictional Hilde, will keep you watching.
Death in Paradise
Watch on: BBC iPlayer / BritBox UK
BBC One’s flagship murder mystery has never been better than the last few episodes of 2020’s season, wherein Ralph Little swooped in as the show’s fourth lead detective and had some of the show’s best-rendered deductive insights to date. Very disappointingly, season high-point Shyko Amos won’t be returning for the next run in 2021.
Queens of Mystery
Watch on: Acorn TV
A meta-textual confection that brings together lots of familiar cosy murder tropes and sprinkles them with Pushing Daisies or Amelie fancifulness. Originally released in the US in 2019, the show made its way to the UK in 2020 upon the launch of Acorn TV, a streaming channel that seems custom-designed for lovers of this sort of thing.
Teenage Bounty Hunters
Watch on: Netflix UK
An eccentric, punchy series with a couple of wildly inventive conceits, Teenage Bounty Hunters got lost among the noise on Netflix and has already been cancelled. Unfortunately this means that the show ends on a cliffhanger, but there’s enough resolution along the way for the series to feel otherwise complete.
The Deceived
Watch on: Buy/download
Co-written by Derry Girls’ Lisa McGee and her husband, Channel 5’s thriller mini-series can sometimes feel like Hitchock fan-fiction, especially his adaptation of Rebecca, but it works as both a fun rollercoaster ride and, ultimately, a slightly subversive test of audience attitudes to female characters.
Dead Still
Watch on: Acorn TV
A Victorian mystery series set in the creepy context of post-mortem and memorial photography, Dead Still shifts its emphasis from mystery-of-the-week to arc-driven storytelling – nicely in step with the audience’s growing investment in its characters and their fates. Read our full review
The Pale Horse
Watch on: Buy/download
Sarah Phelps’ latest adaptation of Agatha Christie took a spooky outlier from the queen of crime’s oeuvre and transforms it into a polished, slightly too-glamorous entertainment that, nonetheless, remains acutely attuned to the original novel’s subtext and resonances. Read our full review
Un Bore Mercher (Keeping Faith): Season 3
Watch on: BBC iPlayer
The Welsh-language version of Keeping Faith, filmed simultaneously with the English-language iteration, wrapped up its three-season run on S4C and BBC iPlayer. Faith Howells is a truly compelling lead character, complicated and determined, and given any number of compelling grace notes by the scripts, and the outstanding performance of Eve Myles. See the English-language version on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in 2021.
Truth Seekers
Watch on: Amazon Prime
The episodic structure of Truth Seekers leads to uneven pacing but there’s something delightful in how the early, separate stories work in parallel with the bigger plot, and co-writers Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have lavished plenty of their trademarked set-up and call-back fun all over the scripts. Read our full review
Endeavour
Watch on: ITV Hub / BritBox UK
This popular Inspector Morse prequel plays a different game to the original show and its Lewis spin-off. It’s one of the most dense, literary and allusive series in the history of TV. Creator and writer Russell Lewis this year mixed his riddles with high- and pop-culture references as diverse as ESP research, La Traviata and the Boulting Brothers’ Twisted Nerve. The closest thing to a good crossword on this list.
Shakespeare & Hathaway
Watch on: BBC iPlayer / BritBox UK
Light, bright and often genuinely funny, Shakespeare and Hathaway is the jewel of BBC Daytime TV. There were a couple of standout episodes this year, among some slightly less special examples, but the balance of sweet, emotional stories and lovable lead characters ensure the show is always good company. Read our full review
I May Destroy You
Watch on: BBC iPlayer
A crime story with a mystery at the centre of the plot, Michaela Coel’s series is not, in other respects, quite like the rest of this list. It is, however, upsetting and passionate, intricate and rich, and some of the most addictive television of the year. Read our full review
The InBestigators
Watch on: Netflix UK
The second, and seemingly final, season of this charming mystery show for family audiences landed on Netflix very early this year. Each story is a small wonder, fitting inside 15 minutes and packing in lots of gags and character, as well as mysteries that kids can follow without ever being too obvious. A TV tonic, with an abundance of heart and warmth. Read our full review
Dracula
Watch on: BBC iPlayer / Netflix UK
As portrayed by Dolly Wells, Sister Agatha is the most compelling new character of the year (longer still, to honest), a mercurial force of wit and imagination who’s more than a match for Dracula. There’s a sense of diminishing returns as each episode gives way to the next but there’s more clever-clever craft in Dracula than in most of the rest of this list put together. Read our full review
Veronica Mars
Watch on: STARZPLAY
The UK release of Veronica Mars’s most recent run was delayed until spring 2020 but it was more than worth the wait. A single mystery spread across eight episodes this is a real feat of pacing and structure, never getting boring, never going in circles, and finding just the right amount of screentime for beloved and love-to-hate characters from earlier seasons. The final episode ends with powerful voice over narration by Veronica that’s as good as any in the show’s entire run, laying bare exactly why this series, and this character, is the heroine we really, desperately need now. Come back soon, Veronica.