DVD Review: ‘Art Detectives’ Season 1

It’s not as though television is short on crime dramas, but an actually good case-of-the-week show doesn’t come along every day. Art Detectives is a crime show where smarts, not brawn, solve the case. DI Palmer (True Blood‘s Stephen Moyer) runs, or rather is, the Heritage Crime Unit. After working with DC Malik (Nina Singh) during the first episode, he invites her to become the unit’s inaugural second member.

Technically, their cases don’t have to involve murder. Their speciality is art or inheritances, so it could be forgeries, stolen property, vandalism. In episode three, they’re assigned to a case because the crime took place on a heritage site. In episode four, the crime technically doesn’t fall under their purview, but because a high-ranking member of society is involved, they’re the unit that gets stuck with the case. This kind of muddies the waters, in terms of what the Heritage Crime Unit does, but also feels realistic to how a specialty unit like theirs would be treated — as a catch-all for the cases other units don’t want or don’t have time for, instead of with respect for their defined parameters.

Back to the murder aspect of it all, though: even when these cases start out as pure art theft (like episode six, when a vase goes missing at an auction house), the fact that eventually a body is found is how you know you’re watching a television show. Still, while I wish the series didn’t feel obligated to always throw in a murder, it works and that can be attributed to a couple of reasons.

Firstly, there’s the pairing of Moyer and Singh, who make a great team as DI Palmer and DC Malik. Their relationship is completely professional (not even a whiff of romance), and the series acknowledges the fact that they’re still in the getting to know each other phase. That isn’t the same thing as getting up in each other’s business right away. DI Palmer has a checkered past with his criminal father (Larry Lamb), for example, but while DC Malik is broadly aware of this, she’s not prying or asking him twenty questions about it. Their relationship is allowed to evolve organically. What’s important is the respect they show each other from the start.

The cases are really well-written and detail-oriented, with rewarding answers derived from research, observation, and tapping into history (like realizing a wine bottle’s been faked because of an anachronism on the label). I don’t know whether credit is due to the set design, make-up team, or both, but the crime scenes look extremely realistic (especially the fake blood), and there’s just a realism to the show as a whole, like the timeline.

At the end of episode one, for instance, Malik has accepted Palmer’s job offer but whereas other shows would have that transition happen overnight, Malik is taking 30 days to adjust and figure out her new living arrangements, as a person changing jobs would. She has a life outside of work (and hopefully, if the series is renewed for a second season, we get to meet the parents she’s been talking to on the phone).

Overall, for fans of art history and crime shows like Bones, Art Detectives should be a treat. Season 1 is available on DVD from Acorn in the US and Acorn Media International in the UK. It’s also streaming on Acorn TV.