A scene from “Midsummer Night’s Murder,” one of the shows in the Austrian TV series “Backwoods Crime” on MHz Choice

“Backwoods Crime” is a subtitled series from Austrian TV that is actually ten separately-titled 90-minute movies that originally aired from 2013-16, bundled into an anthology format. The cast, tenor and setting are unique to each. None of the stories overlap or connect with each other.

Nine of the ten were made available for screening. They do share some similarities. All are set in small Austrian villages – mostly in the Alps. Production values are consistently excellent for the medium, providing plenty of lovely vistas and street scenes in charming towns. All involve one or more murders to be solved by protagonist cops or ex-cops, or a mix of each. Almost all are low enough on the violence and gore scales to be comparable to U.S. prime-time fare, and somewhat...