Grantchester

The glorious new PBS mystery series Grantchester is a revelation on two fronts and unforgettable on both. It turns back the clock to solve crime in a different era, offering respite from the world around us now even as it reveals how little ever changes about the human heart.

The show had become steadily tedious in recent years. But with Rishi Nair as Alfie, the new man in the collar beginning with Episode 3, suddenly there is wit and life in this series.

Grantchester is a period piece, but it’s fascinating to view it through a contemporary lens. Daisy Coulam’s adaptation is superb: She fleshes out the main characters with a deft hand, to be sure, but takes her time, enabling us to get to know Chambers as we would a new acquaintance.

It's light and diverting yet respectful of its characters and their histories, thus it can serve as a pleasant, earnest counterbalance to some of TV's darker dramas.

Taking it as inconsequential entertainment and it does the job. Green gets the best lines.

Joining the likes of Poirot, Miss Marple, Foyle, Sherlock and a hundred other PBS sleuths is no minor achievement, and Grantchester seems to belong in that company. It is unlikely, however, to break away from the pack.

The main problem at the moment seems to be that the show has run out of steam and needs something to perk it up.