THE CLOSER AND BURN NOTICE MAY BE DONE 'TIL SUMMER...:

...but there's good news on the foreign tv front. First, through some quirk of the scheduling gods, Danish (or Dutch, they are different, right?) television is showing the third season of Inspector Lewis before it's seen in Britain--and years before it will ever make it here. If you don't mind the Flemish subtitles--and I have to admit I found them more distracting than English ones--you can get episodes one and two at The Box. Kevin Whatley has had an awfully good run, but it's Laurence Fox, as Hathaway, who's the real revelation in this series. If Lewis isn't the greatest sergeant in detective fiction, Hathaway is.

Next, Australia's City Homicide is back for its third season. They still haven't outgrown the annoying quick cuts they use and everyone plays it a tad too intense at all times, but the cast of characters is first rate and this year they've brought back the head of the drug squad who got Duncan's ex killed and made him Stanley's boss. You can find those torrents at Mininova.

Finally, for fans of The Wire, The Sopranos and Rome, there's a great show from Australian television called Underbelly. It's based on the true story of a suburban mob war that spattered blood all over Melbourne from 1995-2004. It's filled with violence, drugs, profanity, and sex--do they have any broadcast tv standards?--and, like those other shows, you don't want to get too attached to a character because he/she probably isn't going to live long. But it's very well done. Those torrents are available at Mininova too.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 2, 2009 1:52 PM