Some favorite mystery shows

Living in the current golden age of digital streaming, we mystery lovers have a lot of wonderful mystery shows we can watch, old and new.

Here are a few of my favorites, in no particular order.

Midsomer Murders. I love this delightful cozy featuring police as the main characters, set in the fictional English County of Midsomer. Twenty-two season and counting of light-hearted, sometimes outlandish, and always enjoyable mystery spinning.

Only Murders In the Building. This fable-like series on Hulu blew me away when it premiered last year. The trio of sleuths have fantastic chemistry, balancing in the wacky oldsters in Martin Short and Steve Martin, and Selena Gomez’s twenty-something old soul in a young person’s body hero. The stately Arconia in New York City is a character in its own right, and the show balances humor with a twisty, sometimes dark mystery. Plus podcasting fun.

Elementary. I loved this modern version of Sherlock Holmes, set in Manhattan, with Lucy Liu playing Doctor Joan Watson and Johnny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes. Great setting, great mysteries, and an intriguing on going storyline of character growth and friendship

Columbo. The classic reverse-who-done it series, where the viewer saw the murder committed and knew the identity of the killer from the start. It ran in two iterations on television. The first, in the 1970s (following a pilot move in 1968) and a second run beginning in 1989 until 2003. The always rumpled and disheveled police lieutenant detective (except in the original pilot) played a bumbling, absent-minded sort that lulled the entitled, rich murders into underestimating him. The heart of the show was watching Columbo solve the mystery and reveal the villain. Peter Falk was absolutely brilliant in the title role.