Editing Approved Television (section)

==Crime==

*'''Breaking Bad:''' The story of a high-school chemistry teacher succumbing to cancer turned meth maker and his junkie ex-student sidekick. A premise made special by its excellent writing that won Bryan Cranston and the creative team 10d100 Emmys for portraying Mr. Rodger's gradual slide into a paranoid drug kingpin without any sign of seasonal decay. This is how you RP, people! Take note.
**'''Better Call Saul:''' A solid spin-off series of the above. Well written, well acted, and pretty good at showing how the American legal system works. Most importantly, if you ever wondered what it takes to be a good Face, Jimmy is one of the prime examples to observe.

*'''Columbo:''' Oldschool detective series without action, the investigation instead being an intellectual challenge. The protagonist, even though he is a Lieutenant of the Las Angeles Police Department, doesn't have a gun and is actually afraid of shooting. He has a wife who is only mentioned and never seen, because it's a running gag to not show her at all. The whole show's construction is unique in the way that the viewer can see the crime itself first, and then Columbo's investigation of it as he figures out how to catch the criminal. And the most famous gimmick being that Columbo acts like a complete moron, to throw people off.

*'''Glina''' ["Cop"]: Amazingly good Polish neo-noir series. While it starts slow, after initial few episodes it turns into a modern masterpiece of crime series. Very oldschool in style, with a wide range of different cases, juicy dialogues (or at least juicy translation) and great performances. If you ever wanted to run or play an investigation game, accept no substitute for inspiration or direct rip-off.

*'''Midsomer Murders''': You need some inspiration for exotic murder methods and mysterious clues to use in your campaign? Here's the reigning champion of weird murders and bizarre clues. Originally described as "Agatha Christie on Acid", but later seasons veer more towards "''Murder, She Wrote'' after a really long and ugly cocaine bender". Keep in mind though, having run for nearly 25 years, there is a fair amount of crap to wade through, but the nuggets of gold that can be found are more than worth it.

*'''Mindhunter''': A series dedicated to the history of criminal profiling, rather than typical case-to-case procedural. Instead of being a material to rip off cases from, it's still an invaluable source of ideas and hooks, precisely due to it subject matter: motive that goes beyond "greedy" and "insane", while still keeping things simple. If you are routinely running investigation-heavy games, this show can definitely help to sort things out and step up your game. Cancelled without getting an actual ending, yet still worth watching.

*'''Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)''': Jeff Randall and Marty Hopkirk are running together a detective agency, until one day Hopkirk dies in a car accident. Except it was actually a hit, so now ghostly Marty returns and tells Jeff who killed him, hoping that catching the killer will let him rest in peace or something... which never happens, leaving him stuck. From there on, Randall keeps solving criminal cases, while Hopkirk runs the ghostly intel. Better than it sounds, while being a perfect occult detective pairing and just enough ideas how to use a supernatural sidekick for the job. Modern remake is purely optional.

*'''Remington Steele''': She's a private detective with a fake male partner so clients will take her seriously, because it was the 80s and "muh glass ceiling" was the hot-button topic of the day. He's a con artist that impersonates the guy for shits and giggles. Together, they solve mysteries and look stunning while doing so. How good is it? Pierce Brosnan went from nobody to playing James Bond. How is it /tg/? It has the sort of plots and logic that players in your contemporary investigative game will follow, since that's how Mr. Steele operates, as he's not an actual PI. First four seasons only, the last one is trash made on contractual obligation.

*'''True Detective''': First season, anyway. Southern gothic meets modern investigation meets a whole plot reference to [[Yog-Sothothery|The King in Yellow]]. Very dark and climactic series, with solid performances and a bunch of ideas how to pull a modern "investigator" type of game Call of Cthulhu struggles so badly to market.

*'''Twin Peaks''': A somewhat [[skub]]worthy entry, given [[Dune#The_Movies|David Lynch's involvement]], but a worthwhile watch, nonetheless. What starts off as a fairly cheesy whodunnit about the murder of the local homecoming queen soon reveals itself to be something more in line with paranormal surrealist horror. If you're not sure how to make your [[Call of Cthulhu]] game walk the line between the supernatural and the mundane, then this is your guide. Watch seasons one & two, then the film, and then season 3 for maximum authenticity.

*'''Wallander''': Swedish crime series, following the cases of the titular police inspector. Unlike typical TV series, each episode runs for around 90 minutes, being a feature-length, self-contained crime movie, but packed into serialised format. Your average police procedural wishes to be this good. /tg/-wise, it's the down to earth, old school modern investigation, without all the tech gizmos or over the top crimes and plots, making it far more applicable to your games than any other procedural.
**'''Wallander: Anglophone''' A BBC remake of the above, the main differences being it's in English (but still set in the Swedish town of Ystad) and, being made by Bongs, it has only 12 episodes, despite running four seasons. Everything else is pretty much the same, so if you are illiterate or American and can't handle subtitles, this is the way to still give it a shot.

*'''The Wire''': Everybody else recommends it, so why not us? Grimdark crime drama about drug dealing in Baltimore and the justice system trying (and mostly failing) to stop it. Great characters, and fantastic writing and world-building already work to this show's benefit on top of smart film-making and genuine political intrigue. If you want a good primer on how to do [[Grimdark]] well, this is a very solid place to start.