Across the Pond: Brooding Detection

I could have done a retrospective of recent to-dos in the ecclesiastical world, but detailing the recent gatherings of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Anglican Church in North America, and the Presbyterian Church in America would cause a plank of wood to curl up. And that's with the ACNA provincial gathering being quality stuff (#gettingmynewbookofcommonprayersoon). 

One item of note has been that throughout late 2018 into 2019, the Davis family has been enjoying the addition of Britbox to our television experience. The Brits have always gone head and shoulders above almost all of American production in writing quality episodes and developing believable characters. I've watched the lion's share or all of seven key series that I think deserve viewing. Technically, that number is nine, but I'm not going to review Newzoids or Rovers. The first show up for props is one of the better mysteries out there.

Shetland is based on Ann Cleeves' Shetland Island mysteries and the gumshoe gambits of Inspector Jimmy Perez. I know what you're thinking...what's a Spanish name doing in the remote islands beyond the Scottish Highlands? Turns out one of the inspector's ancestors was a shipwrecked member of the Spanish Armada who turned up on the shore of Fair Isle and the genealogical remainder is history. Douglas Henshall plays Perez's character, bring laser-like focus to the role that requires a hardy soul weathered by the Shetland geography and culture.

In spite of the remote location, the Shetlands turn out to be quite the bloody center of activity. The first two series track fairly well with Cleeves' novels [first series of two episodes; second series of three two-episode mysteries] before expanding to six-episode series that track singular murders all the way to completion of justice. Perez has to contend with islanders who engage in underhanded business on the mainland of Scotland, savage murders, and the disappearance of a young man on a ferry crossing, just to name several vexing encounters. DS Allison 'Tosh' Macintosh and DC Sandy Wilson provide assistance to Perez (and you'll come to appreciate the positioning of CCTV cameras throughout the British Isles; a libertarian like me did, as well!). 

Perez is not a sulky detective who wiles away his off-hours with cigarettes, coffee, and beer. He is a widower, a devoted and loving single father to daughter Cassie, who is 18 going on 30. Managing a complex friendship with Cassie's biological father Duncan brings the kind of conflicted respect that only hard-nosed friends can have.

Moreso, the viewer falls in love with the Shetlands, a place that is hard to love, a locale where people carve out a difficult living of sorts, where natives are suspect of others nosing in and yet want justice and clarity. Often, to get that justice, Perez has to nose in more deeply than the residents might want.

But five series are already in the books with a sixth in the offing for 2020, I hope. Murder and evil can strike on rugged and remote terrain, and Perez is just the sort of steely angel of justice to bring a modicum of hope.

Blue Reign

It's been a while, I know. You might think a major aberration in the zeitgeist could get me blogging again. You'd be right.

This is one week after the fact, but we citizens of the greater St. Louis area are basking in the glow of the Blues winning their first NHL championship and finally lifting the Stanley Cup. Fifty-two years after the team's provenance and the long-suffering fans in St. Louis have finally reached their blue heaven.

While not the equivalent of the suffering of Cubs fans before finally winning a World Series in 2016 to end a 108-year drought, the Blues were known as the Brooklyn Dodgers of the NHL. Wait 'til next year. Always having a decent team to make the playoffs, it seemed, but fizzling out each year. 

It was such an energetic start for the franchise. Beginning with the 1967-68 season, when the NHL expanded beyond the Original Six (Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, Detroit, New York, Boston), the league doubled with the addition of the Philadelphia Flyers, Los Angeles Kings, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Minnesota North Stars, the Oakland Seals, and the Blues. In the league's infinite wisdom, they put all the new teams in the same division, and the Blues thrived. If you call thriving as getting to the Stanley Cup finals their first three years and getting swept all three times: Montreal in 1968 and 1969, and Boston with flying Bobby Orr in 1970.

Since then, the Blues hadn't been back. But, despite being a Canadiens and Flyers fan, I did come to love the Blues when I moved to St. Louis in early 1993. In fact, the first Blues game I watched on old Channel 11 was a fist-slinger with the Detroit Red Wings that brought the goalies out to throw haymakers. Eighty-six penalty minutes doled out before a minute was gone in the game, won by the Blues over their division rivals.

Oh, it was glorious to be a Blues fan, yet painful as well. That year, the Blues finished fourth in the Norris Division and barely cracked the playoff field, taking on the Chicago Blackhawks in the first round. But miracle of miracles, Brett Hull, Craig Janney, and the crew pulled off an astonishing four-game sweep of the Campbell Conference-topping Hawks, sending goalie Ed Belfour into a smashing mood.

But the Cup never got to St. Louis' hands that year (my Canadiens grabbed it, thanks in large part to 10 straight overtime wins in the playoffs), and year after year dragged on without hockey's ultimate prize. The team moved out of the St. Louis Arena and the old barn on Oakland Avenue was taken down. Years at the Kiel Center, which became the Savvis Center, then the Scottrade Center, then now the Enterprise Center, brought many playoff games, but no Cup. The Blues got to the Western Conference finals in 2001, but the champion Colorado Avalanche pushed them aside.

I'd been to several Blues games over the years--Christy and I even went to an NHL exhibition game in Lafayette, LA, between the Blues and Avalanche at the Cajundome in 1998--but wondered if "next year" would ever come to St. Louis. The Blues were in the midst of a playoff drought when we moved back here and promptly started making regular playoff seasons upon our arrival. Yet still, we seemed to run into better teams along the way.

This year looked to be the absolute trench. The Blues were mired in last place in the entire league on January 2nd. Mike Yeo had been fired earlier, and interim coach Craig Berube had been gifted a newly promoted goalie from their minor league squad in San Antonio named Jordan Binnington. And that, folks, is when the team caught fire.

Yes, a team that barely got chosen over Baltimore in 1967 to have an NHL franchise. Yes, the same team that Ralston-Purina treated like a financial tumor in the late seventies and early eighties. Yes, the same team that was signed and sealed in cloak-and-dagger fashion to be headed to Saskatoon--I mean, Saskatoon!--in 1983. That team won 30 games, lost only 15, and lost four overtime or shootout games the rest of the way in the regular season before casting aside Winnipeg, Dallas, San Jose, and then the evil Boston Bruins.

Please don't say, "It's just hockey." Anyone who keeps an eye on St. Louis knows this city needed a moment like this. The death of Michael Brown and the following civic combustibility displayed St. Louis as a city marked by racial divides. Losing the Rams to Los Angeles under the shifty dealing of Stan Kroenke, who declared that St. Louis wasn't a great sports city, added to the malaise. City and county government bumbles along under the cloud of scandal. 

One beautiful truth about sports is that it can be a great unifier. Yes, St. Louis has its problems, and they are legion. But the same people who deal with that darkness got behind this team, and many were at the victory parade last Saturday to celebrate the unthinkable. For "next year" has finally come to St. Louis. The Gateway to the West is now home to Lord Stanley's Cup.