Top Ten British TV Cop Shows

Set in the coastal town of Hastings in Surrey, England, Foyle's War covers a period from the commencement of the Second World War to the immediate post war period and explores the crime solving exploits of Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle (Michael Kitchen). Foyle's War shares many of the features of the best British police dramas with careful and superbly written plot lines (sometimes examined in great meticulous detail over multiple episodes) and magnificent attention to historical accuracy with props, costumes and contemporary customs and procedures. Another major feature of the top UK cop shows is the fabulous acting skills of the lead actors and the excellent chemistry between them and their co-lead actors. Michael Kitchen is incredible as Foyle, careful, thorough, understated and quietly determined. The chemistry with his Sergeant Paul Milner (Anthony Howell) and his driver Samantha Stewart (Honeysuckle Weeks) is fantastic and endearing over multiple seasons. Aside from the veritable Who’s Who of British acting talent who made guest appearances throughout the nine seasons of the show, all episodes covered in detail many aspects of day to day life in wartime England including a vast range of quite controversial subjects with the screen writers unafraid to examine various aspects of the ugly underbelly of the war. The entire series served up gripping and enjoyable episodes over and over again.

Endeavour is another period drama this time set from the mid '60’s to early '70’s in the university town of Oxford. It follows the early career of Detective Constable/Sergeant Endeavour Morse (Shaun Evans) made famous by one of Britain’s longest screening police dramas "Morse" which covered the exploits of the middle aged Chief Inspector Morse. The young Endeavour Morse of this series is an intriguing and compelling character in his own right, a former Oxford scholar, deep thinking and cultured but without upper class pretentions and somewhat quirky and unconventional. The show takes maximum advantage of being set in Oxford and many plot lines involve crimes committed in one of the famous Colleges some of which began life as far back as the Middle Ages or by faculty (called Dons), students or staff at the University. Morse’s enigmatic character, and the show itself, is enhanced and enlarged by the performance of his superior officer Detective Chief Inspector Fred Thursday (Roger Allam). A working-class former WW2 soldier originally from the East End of London, he represents the by then middle-aged Greatest Generation with old school values and customs down to wearing a hat well into the '70’s when that convention had all but disappeared. Morse and Friday are Yin and Yan, so different and seemingly incompatible and yet with amazing chemistry as a brilliant crime solving team. The chemistry is augmented by Sergeant then DS Jim Strange (Sean Rigby), whose thoroughness and personableness sees him rise through the ranks, and also the paternalistic and fastidious Chief Superintendent Reginald Bright (Anton Lesser). The story lines are superb and compelling delving deep into the fabric of life in Oxford and, as always, the historical accuracy with costumes and props is stunning and each episode begins with dramatic classical music pieces against Oxford's unique scenery.

Line of Duty is the highest ranked of the contemporary UK police dramas. Unlike most shows of this genre where the location is clear and often a feature of the show, Line of Duty appears to be vaguely set in the West Midlands/Birmingham area, but this location is never front and centre made more confusing by the fact that the series are shot in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Line of Duty differs from all other police dramas in that it covers the activities of an Anti-Corruption Unit called AC12 designed to root out police malfeasance, so the primary crimes examined are those committed by police although the progress of regular important police inquiries are usually an important part of the story lines. Busting crooked cops involves a lot of undercover work so Line of Duty takes on the tension and drama of a spy thriller. Indeed, in my opinion, Line of Duty is the most exciting action-packed British police drama; there is lots of shooting and guns for a British show and there are intricate plot lines to follow that build tension over a series. Line of Duty is the first of the shows in the Top 10 to feature a story line that extends over the life of a season and beyond into subsequent series so giving the show the ability to explore plots in great depth. Any good show features great characters and the show is anchored by three main characters: Detective Sergeant/Inspector Steve Arnott (Martin Compton) and his irascible Irish boss Detective Superintendent Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) and DI Lindsay Denton (Keeley Hawes) who leaves the force and become an antagonist at times. This cast is augmented by DC Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) and a series of embedded corrupt cops whose detection and extraction prove difficult but the tales of getting there are gripping and compelling. The show has been around long enough to explore a unique and long term story line, that of a rebellious and already criminal boy Ryan Pilkington played by then 13-year-old Gregory Piper. Piper returns to the show 8 years later aged 21 as a new PC enhancing the realism of the show’s main thrust, that of bent coppers. The chemistry of the AC12 team is unique due to the unusual nature of their work and the tensions that erupt in this work are fully explored in the show especially the strong, feisty and headstrong boss Hastings who brings his lovely Belfast accent and humour to the role.

Vera is another contemporary police show that has been on screens for over 10 years, and is set unashamedly Tyneside or around metropolitan Newcastle. The show is replete with native Geordies as well as the main characters making a good go of this most unique and appealing of regional British accents. The show revolves round the enigmatic Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope (Brenda Blethyn), and this is one British cop show where the main character really steals the show. Vera is slightly eccentric showing up daily in a scruffy MacIntosh (as the British call an unlined waterproof overcoat), a floppy bucket hat and an old school Land Rover car. She combines quirkiness with acerbic wit, a take-no-prisoners forceful style with her staff but also a natural cunning instinct for criminals and crime scenes. Her Sergeant is first Joe Ashworth (David Leon) and more lately DS Aiden Healy (Deny Doughty). Unlike many of the other top shows, Vera covers a single crime per episode, so the pace of investigations is a lot brisker and the crime solving is more telescoped, but the story lines make full use of Vera’s team, and the show does explore the characters of the main Detective Constables in a little more depth that most shows rather than focusing on one of two characters outside the main chief Detective and his/her Sergeant. The plots are quite intricate and very clever and keep you guessing until the end.

If ratings and popularity were the main factors in the ranking, then Sherlock would easily be No. 1. This modern re-telling of the classic Arthur Conan-Doyle crime solving exploits of London based Detective Sherlock Holmes features the most compelling and intriguing Benedict Cumberbatch as the brilliant but eccentric Holmes and Martin Freeman as his offsider, wounded Afghanistan vet Dr John Watson. The chemistry between Cumberbatch and Freeman is terrific and the marriage between the Victorian novel and 21st Century London is perfect and is the basis for the series' stunning success, the best of both worlds so to speak. The show is a testament to the quality and depth of the original novels and of the scriptwriters’ ability to adapt them to the modern screen. It represents a quirky departure from regular more protocol and process driven modern police procedures.

Prime Suspect is the OG of modern dark police dramas and is the first to have a female lead senior police detective in Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennyson (Helen Mirren). Not only must Tennyson navigate London’s dark criminal underworld but must work with underlings who resent the promotion of a woman and who initially thwart and undermine her work. In this regard, Prime Suspect is an excellent snapshot of cultural history of the early '90’s as it was a contemporary show in its day, but now well dated by modern policing trends in the UK. Prime Suspect broke new ground with its granular attention to the physical details of grisly murders and almost brutal (for the time) realism of crime scenes and of the emotional toll policing high level violent crime takes on senior police staff. Mirren’s performance as Tennyson is probably to this day the single most incredible acting performance of anyone in a senior detective role in any police drama anywhere in the world. She dominates the acting landscape in Prime Suspect in a way not reached by even the august performances of many of the other DCIs that appear in this list. Her performance is one of sheer magnificence. She is ably supported by many, but this show’s primacy of place and enduring popularity is driven by Mirren’s incredible excellence and by some of the finest script writing of the genre.

Broadchurch follows a single murder case over every episode for three full seasons spanning from 2013 to 2017. Set in a fictitious idyllic Dorset coastal town called Broadchurch (the actual filming location was West Bay, Dorset), it tracks the murder investigation of 11 year old Daniel Latimer headed by the intense, volatile and troubled Scottish Detective Inspector Alec Hardy (David Tennant). He is ably assisted by Dorset native Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller (Olivia Coleman) who smooths the interface between the sometimes abrasive, blunt Scottish ways of DI Hardy and the gentle West Country ways of this tight knit popular holiday town (due to the stunning golden sands below picturesque sheer cliff faces). This is another regional UK cop show that fully exploits the scenery, culture and accent of the location. Broadchurch is unique in that the case is not initially properly solved and it tracks the lives of the main protagonists, the police and the families and friends of the victim over several years and by sticking with the same cast, the natural aging, especially of the children who were friends and relatives of the victim, is fabulously authentic. Like all good cop shows, the chemistry between the DI and the DS is fantastic especially given the chalk and cheese nature of their personalities. The show, whilst at times dark, maintains superb tension and magnificent suspense throughout the entire series and is unafraid to explore DI Hardy’s demons in a career defining performance by Tennant. The scriptwriting is of the highest order.

Unforgotten is one of several UK cop shows where the police detectives specialize in cold cases and each case straddles all 6 episodes of each season. Set in London, the show has a more gentle and measured pace compared to most of the top 10 shows. The cases are notoriously complicated requiring time to build layers of the characters and plots so tension rises slowly and carefully. The standout is the stunning performance of Nicola Walker as Detective Chief Inspector Cassie Stewart who brings thoroughness, caution and sensitivity to her role. Her partner Detective Inspector Sunny Kahn (Sanjeey Bhaskar) is equally brilliantly cast and the chemistry between them is as good as it gets especially given the complexity of each case. In a crop of shows all with fabulous script writers, I would have to say that the team behind Unforgotten simply have no peer because it is the intricately woven and beautifully told plot lines that combine to make Unforgotten easily worthy of a Top 10 slot.

The Fall is set firmly in Belfast, Northern Island and pits the aloof, glamorous and meticulous London Metropolitan Police Superintendent Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson), brought in to try and arrest a seemingly uncatchable serial killer Paul Spector (Jamie Doran), against the reluctant Assistant Chief Constable Jim Burns (John Lynch) of the Police Force of Northern Ireland, a deliberate name change from the former Royal Ulster Constabulary, seen as a partisan institution in the decades long “Troubles” between the majority Protestant population of British controlled Northern Ireland and the minority Catholics loyal to Sinn Fein and the IRA seeking unification with the mostly Catholic Republic of Ireland to the south. Tensions between the British and Irish still simmer and surface in the tension between Gibson and Burns. The Fall is a psychological thriller in the dark and gripping mold of Prime Suspect pitting the wiles of a psychopathic serial killer against the intensity and analytical approach taken by DCS Gibson. The story lines are as good as any thriller movie and the backdrop in Ireland and the residual tensions inherent with a senior lead detective imposed by London onto Belfast adds further frisson to the story lines. The show is dramatic and is easily the tensest and most suspenseful of the Top 10.

Happy Valley is unique in various ways in the top 10. It features the gritty bleaker landscape of West Yorkshire set mostly in the small town of Hebdon Bridge. The lead character, Police Sergeant Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) is a beat cop as opposed to the more glamourous murder Detective Inspectors of the CID who are the leads in almost all British cop shows. Tracing the plight of PS Cawood's young grandson Ryan (Rhys Connah) who is the son of psychopathic killer Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton), the show takes a number of gripping and dark twists over the 3 seasons. Director and Writer Sally Wainwright left a 6 year gap between Seasons 2 and 3 to allow the character of Ryan to mature from a 10 year old boy to a 16 year old adolescent with dramatic effect. The plot lines are taut, compelling, intense and gripping.