11 Best Acorn TV Originals

Rebecca Gibney and Charles Edwards play two urbanites who become accidental vintners after inheriting a New Zealand vineyard. The banter is witty, the chemistry is potent, and the scenery is stunning — like a particularly boozy glass of wine, this comedy’s got legs.

Tannie Maria is used to writing recipes for dishes like ostrich pie, not solving murders. But when her new job as an advice columnist goes awry, the pressure is on for her to crack cases, as Orphan Black and Outlander alum Maria Doyle Kennedy gets a well-deserved star turn.

From creator Peter Fincham, the TV exec who green-lit Downton Abbey, comes this compelling crime series. Award-winning actor Adrian Scarborough plays the titular character, an outsider solving crimes in London’s wealthiest borough with a devilish sense of humor.

He’s a retired detective, she’s a widowed nurse, and together, Darby and Joan are a bit of an odd couple in the outback. These “open road detectives” investigate crimes all over northern Australia, but the real fun is watching the chemistry between Bryan Brown and Greta Scacchi.

Lucy Lawless returns to TV in the role of Alexa Crowe, a former detective who now works as a private eye (and part-time bread baker). Alexa is a crackerjack crime-solver who can see through the suspicious characters crossing her path… including one played by a certain Xena costar.

There’s a new Fisher in town in this spinoff of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. After her famous aunt goes missing, Peregrine Fisher (Geraldine Hakewill) follows in her footsteps and becomes a private eye in Melbourne, Australia. The swinging-60s vibe, meanwhile, puts the “mod” in “modern.”

A major hit in the United Kingdom, this true-crime series stars Doc Martin actor Martin Clunes as a detective chief inspector on the trail of serial killers from real life. Season 1 focused on the crimes of Levi Bellfield; Season 2 followed the man known as Britain’s Night Stalker.

Sharon D. Clarke, a Doctor Who alum and three-time Olivier Award winner, takes the lead in this crime drama, each feature-length episode of which drops her titular detective into a different jurisdiction to solve another crime. White male cops might dismiss her insights, but only at their peril.

For almost two decades, Martin Clunes lit up British telly as Martin Ellingham, a London surgeon who changes gears after developing an “extremely inconvenient” phobia of blood. The so-called Doc Martin moves to a Cornish village, where his uptight demeanor is hilariously out of place.

This BAFTA winner for Best Comedy comes from the mind of Mackenzie Crook, the Dwight counterpart in the U.K. version of The Office. He and Toby Jones play “detectorists” of the Danebury Metal Detecting Club, and as they search for treasure, this series unearths surprising humanity.

As World War II and then the Cold War rage on, Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle (Michael Kitchen) wages war against crime in his not-so-quiet English town. With finely-tuned attention to historical detail and Kitchen’s taciturn performance, Foyle’s War won over viewers with its battle for justice on the home front.