Harry Wild

It's good to see Seymour in a series again. And while I enjoy a good British cozy mystery, I can't recall ever reading or watching one based in Ireland. I'm enjoying the characters of Fergus and Harry and the emerging friendship and partnership between them.

There have been a number of similar shows on UK TV recently; odd-couple detective teams e.g. The Chelsea Detective, Murder in Provence, McDonald & Dodds. Fabulous for me as they are right in my wheelhouse and this one delivers.

Harry (Jane Seymour) is self-confident, mouthy with few social filters and, as a recently retired English Professor, offers unwelcome grammatical corrections during conversations. She has a detective son Charlie (Kevin Ryan) whose life she generally makes a misery by interfering with his cases - usually by solving them! Her partner-in-crime is Fergus (Rohan Nedd) who is an articulate, street-wise teenager from a poor background. Indeed they first meet during a mugging perpetrated by Fergus on Harry! Their relationship works well and they develop a growing mutual admiration as their complementary skills help them solve cases.

Easily-digestible, enjoyable viewing - believable core characters - interesting stories flying above the mere procedural.

Just funny enough to watch for a while, and just annoying enough to make me stop. I'm a Jane Seymour fan, but Harry Wild is so obnoxious and irritating! As is the police commissioner (or whatever her rank/position is). I'm married to a strong, confident, successful woman, so I know how wonderful they are. Do the Harry Wild writers really have to make these characters so hard to like? I watch shows to be entertained, not to be irritated, and this show irritates me.

If you liked Miss Fisher, or Jane Seymour, you will like this show. It's fun Agatha Christie style mysteries solved by an older woman and a young man, that she meets by random. Interesting characters, great cast, and good stories. I really like it.

/Refers to Season 1/

A distinct Irish approach with lots of black humour and political incorrectness - but crimes are never fun, but characters or situations can be. Singular performances (well, Jane Seymour was 70 when filming, can you believe this?) and versatile cases (true, not all are equally interesting and meaty, but still...).

In spite of evident exaggerations, the Series captivated me in the very beginning and I really do hope that Season 2 will follow as the last episode ended in a promising manner and several storylines remained infinite. As for similarities, I would juxtapose Harry Wild with Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators from UK. If you liked-enjoyed one of them, you would definitely like-enjoy the other as well.

PS Season 2 has somewhat lost its "sheen" and vigour, with some cases where one could easily surmise the wrongdoer, but 7.5=8, so - no change in my opinion here.

PPS Season 3 is pleasantly frisky again, although in some cases the solution comes a bit abruptly and the role of Garda is undermined.