Sunday Recommendation: Detectorists

I’ve just finished watching the first season of a tiny British comedy called Detectorists. It’s exactly the sort of show that Americans never make: small, unassuming, quiet, dreadfully unhip, and lovely. Written and directed by Mckenzie Crooks, who also stars alongside the terrific Toby Jones, Detectorists is about a couple of metal detecting hobbyists in rural England who spend their free time roaming local fields in search of Saxon treasure, but mostly unearthing ring pulls, buttons, and Matchbox cars. It’s great.

As somebody who has pitched a lot of television shows to American executives, I’m always amazed to discover this sort of low-key, low-concept show because it runs so against the grain of what we’re constantly told audiences want; this is a show without a hook.

Nobody’s trying to save the world on Detectorists. Nobody is even trying to save a life. The closest we get to action is the accidental detonation of long-buried WWII bomb discovered in a farmer’s field. The characters are ordinary-looking. They lead ordinary lives. They harbor no grandiose dreams. The pace is relaxed and unforced. The laughs are genuine but small. The stakes are low enough to be nearly non-existent. Yet I found myself as invested in Andy and Lance as I’ve ever been for any Marvel superhero. Apparently, I’m not the only one. Detectorists ran from 2014-2017 on BBC Two, and did an additional season for BBC Four in 2022. In 2015, it won the BAFTA for Best Scripted Television Comedy. By any measure, the show was a success. So why aren’t we in the States allowed to make anything like this?

Very small, very unhip.

I’m trying to think of an American analogy and coming up short. The closest thing we have (or had) to something like Detectorists is the traditional sit-com. I don’t mean the noisome shows like Seinfeld and Friends from the decades before that genre mostly disappeared from the airwaves. Instead, I think you’d have to go back way further to shows like The Andy Griffith Show or Leave It To Beaver. But that’s not quite right, either, because Detectorists isn’t a “family show.” It’s a show about adults meant for adults. No lessons are imparted. The characters are imperfect but not irredeemable. There’s even a little (but not very much) treachery. Maybe something like Gilmore Girls? Or the bowling alley lawyer show I used to be on, Ed?

No, not quite those, either. Both of those shows were idealistic in a way that Detectorists is not. Their depictions of small-town life shared a romance for exurban living that the residents of the fictional Danesbury do not seem to possess. In Danesbury, marriages fall apart, shops close, and promises made are not necessarily promises kept. If it’s not quite real-life, it’s a lot closer than the gloss of the classic American dramedy.

A few months after my book, A Better Man, came out, a small production company got in touch with me to see if I wanted to adapt it as a television series. The book is written as a letter to my son, and it’s about the challenges men face in a world in which traditional masculinity no longer quite fits. It’s definitely not the sort of thing that readily lends itself to adaptation for television and I was the first one to say this to them. They told me they liked the way I explored questions around masculinity and thought we could find a story together that served that theme. I said that sounded good to me. Then they asked if maybe the show could have a murder. So that was the end of that.

As I think about it, Detectorists does a good job of demonstrating exactly the sort of masculinities I’m advocating for in my book, which is to say that the men in the story are varied in their manhoods. The “heroes” are not of a type. They are sometimes strong-willed, stubborn, gentle, and vulnerable. They are also fuck-ups, the way real people are fuck-ups. They both defy male stereotypes and embrace them, just like real men. The relationship between Lance and Andy is complicated and occasionally competitive. The relationship also feels viscerally true, which is why the show works.

I don’t know why Brits are allowed to make these kinds of shows and we’re not. Maybe American executives don’t trust that American audiences will accept these kinds of unambitious stories. Maybe in the age of streaming, they don’t believe them to be bingeable. I disagree, of course, but I certainly don’t trust my own taste as being reflective of that of my countrymen. My entire career has proven that it is not.

Basically, I’m advocating for the television equivalent of a Nicole Holofcener film. Or Richard Linklater. Or Mike Leigh. Will Americans ever go for that? Probably not. If they would, I suppose those shows would already be on the air. It just kind of bums me out because those are the sorts of things I like to watch and the sorts of things I would like to make. Ah well. Fortunately for me, I’ve got four more seasons of Detectorists to amble through. I don’t know what to expect in the coming adventures of Andy and Lance. I don’t expect them to dig up anything spectacular. In fact, I’d be disappointed if they did.

UPDATE: A Twitter reader named Ellen suggested a good American analogy is the HBO show “Somebody Somewhere.” I agree - another excellent show about oddball friends.