TV GUIDE: Matt's Guide to Weekend TV: Walking Dead, Case Histories and More!
Oct 14, 2011
by Matt Roush
... The weekend's other best bet comes from PBS' Masterpiece Mystery!, beginning a three-part series based on Kate Atkinson's wonderful Jackson Brodie bestsellers. In Case Histories (Sunday, 9/8c, check local schedules), we're introduced to the ex-cop turned private eye, played with seductively wry charisma by Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy from the Harry Potter movies, and the star of NBC's haunting midseason series Awake). Everyone seems to want Brodie on their case, and he's such good company it's easy to see why.
In this beguilingly entertaining movie (followed the next two Sundays by adaptations of One Good Turn and When Will There Be Good News?), Brodie establishes a pattern of continually stumbling into overlapping mysteries that cleverly dovetail in satisfying and surprising ways. Operating a cash-poor shamus practice in Edinburgh, occasionally bringing along his precocious daughter from a broken marriage, Brodie is clearly more of a doer than a brooder. This engaging story begins when his altruistic good deed for a dotty old cat lady (Sylvia Sims) leads him into a cold case involving a little girl who vanished 30 years ago. He's also hounded by a grieving father to solve his daughter's recent brutal murder, which the police are still investigating. A request to locate yet another long-lost girl dredges up a new set of family skeletons. Brodie's cases tend to dwell as much on mysteries of the heart as on the usual blood-and-guts. It's a nice change and a great start to a delightful franchise...
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