Grantchester

This new Masterpiece Mystery series—set in a picturesque village near Cambridge in the early 1950s—at first glance appears to be another easygoing Brit mystery show. Based on a novel by James Runcie, the series stars James Norton as Sidney Chambers, the amiable, slightly eccentric Anglican priest of Grantchester, and British TV veteran Robson Green as Geordie Keating, a Cambridge police detective who is initially wary when (in the opening episode) Sidney insists that a recent suicide may in fact be murder. Their unlikely alliance turns to friendship and the two men wind up investigating a number of crimes together while bonding over 1) their shared experiences as war veterans and 2) a love of fine whiskey. As the mysteries continue, however, Grantchester starts to explore some of the shadows cast by the recent World War—including shell shock, racism, homophobia, and a suspicion of immigrants (especially Germans)—as well as some of the ugliness lying beneath small-town values. The characters also develop over the course of the season: Sidney's opinionated housekeeper (Tessa Peake-Jones) proves to be caring and loyal under her flinty exterior, and she recruits help for Sidney in the form of a junior vicar (Al Weaver)—a young, inexperienced man whose horizons are expanded as his convictions are tested. And Sidney struggles when his first love (Morven Christie) accepts another man's proposal of marriage, revealing the very human side of this religious leader. Compiling all six episodes from 2014, extras include behind-the-scenes featurettes and cast interviews. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)