49 Fun Facts About TV Crime Dramas

Breaking Bad is set in which New Mexico city, chosen over Riverside, California, for its tax breaks?

Albuquerque was Sony's suggestion: Vince Gilligan's early scripts were set in Riverside until New Mexico's production incentives moved the show, and the city became a character in its own right.

Which actor, who lost his right eye to cancer at three, played the rumpled Lieutenant Columbo?

Peter Falk's artificial eye gave Columbo his trademark squint, and the shabby raincoat was Falk's own coat. He won four Emmys in the role between 1972 and 1990.

Who played Holmes opposite Martin Freeman's Watson in the BBC's Sherlock?

Benedict Cumberbatch was the only actor the producers saw for Sherlock; the harder job, they said, was finding a Watson with the right chemistry.

Former police reporter David Simon set The Wire's drug corners, docks and schools in which US city?

Baltimore was Simon's beat at The Baltimore Sun, and each season of The Wire takes on a different institution of the city, from the port to the schools to the newspaper itself.

Which band's 1978 single is the theme of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation?

The Who's "Who Are You", written by Pete Townshend, is the CSI theme, and singer Roger Daltrey later guest-starred as mobster Mickey Dunn in the season-seven episode "Living Legend".

The Sopranos ended with a sudden cut to black in a diner while which Journey song played?

Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" nearly stayed off air: Steve Perry refused to clear it until David Chase promised it would not soundtrack a death scene. The silence that follows made many viewers think their cable had cut out.

Showtime's vigilante killer Dexter Morgan works for Miami Metro police in which forensic speciality?

Blood spatter analysis is his cover: Dexter works crime scenes by day and kills by night, following a code from his adoptive father, a policeman, to target only murderers who escaped justice.

Money Heist's robbers, known by city names like Tokyo and Berlin, wear masks of which artist's face?

Salvador Dalí's moustached face was picked as an instantly recognisable symbol of Spain; the designers first drew a Don Quixote mask and dropped it.

Which FBI agent, played by Kyle MacLachlan, comes to Twin Peaks to investigate Laura Palmer's murder?

Dale Cooper's first clue is a tiny typed letter "R" under Laura Palmer's fingernail, which matches a killing in south-west Washington the year before and turns one murder into a serial case.

Who played the tormented London detective John Luther in Luther?

Idris Elba's Luther was written by Neil Cross, and its first series pairs him with Ruth Wilson's murderer Alice Morgan, with whom the detective forms a dangerously complicated bond.

Which actor, recommended by Agatha Christie's family, played Hercule Poirot on ITV from 1989 to 2013?

David Suchet had been in a Poirot film before, as Inspector Japp opposite Peter Ustinov in 1985; on ITV he went on to film every major Poirot story, 70 episodes in all.

Which daughter of 1950s star Jayne Mansfield has played Olivia Benson on Law & Order: SVU since 1999?

Mariska Hargitay received thousands of letters from viewers disclosing abuse after taking the role, and answered them in 2004 by founding the Joyful Heart Foundation for survivors.

Who played the nihilistic Louisiana detective Rust Cohle opposite Woody Harrelson in True Detective?

Matthew McConaughey was first offered Marty Hart, the part closer to his past work, and asked to play Rust Cohle instead; Woody Harrelson then joined as Hart.

Narcos' first two seasons follow DEA agents Murphy and Peña as they hunt which Medellín cartel boss?

Pablo Escobar is played by the Brazilian Wagner Moura, whose Portuguese-tinged accent was mocked in Colombia as all wrong for a Paisa from Medellín.

Peaky Blinders follows Tommy Shelby's gang in the months after the First World War in which English city?

Birmingham really had Peaky Blinders, street gangs first reported in 1890 whose name outlived them, though historian Carl Chinn says they had vanished before the First World War.

Jessica Fletcher of Murder, She Wrote lives in Cabot Cove, a fictional coastal town in which US state?

Maine's Cabot Cove was filmed a continent away: its exteriors are Mendocino, a town on the northern California coast.

Ozark's money-laundering adviser Marty Byrde moves his family from a Chicago suburb to which state?

Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks is where the Byrdes land, in the resort town of Osage Beach, after Marty talks a Mexican cartel into a bigger laundering operation as amends for a scheme gone wrong.

Fargo's first TV season unfolds around Bemidji, a town in which US state?

Minnesota's Bemidji, not Fargo, is where Billy Bob Thornton's hitman Lorne Malvo crashes his car and meets Martin Freeman's henpecked insurance salesman Lester Nygaard.

Which actor won three Emmys as Adrian Monk, San Francisco's obsessive-compulsive "defective detective"?

Tony Shalhoub's three Emmys for Monk all came in the comedy category; ABC developed the show, handed it to USA Network, then ended up airing its repeats.

Brenda Blethyn's dishevelled DCI Vera Stanhope polices which north-east English county in Vera?

Northumberland's Vera reached television by chance: producer Elaine Collins found Ann Cleeves's novel The Crow Trap in a north London Oxfam shop while hunting for holiday reading.

Which Jed Mercurio series follows AC-12, an anti-corruption unit led by Adrian Dunbar's Ted Hastings?

Line of Duty was turned down by BBC One in 2011 and sent to BBC Two, where it became the channel's highest-rated series in a decade before being promoted to BBC One for series four.

What is Inspector Morse's first name, kept secret until the episode "Death Is Now My Neighbour"?

Endeavour came from Captain Cook's ship, chosen by a Cook-admiring father and a Quaker mother fond of virtue names; Morse's on-screen clue is "My whole life's effort has revolved around Eve, nine letters".

NCIS was launched as a two-episode backdoor pilot inside which Donald P. Bellisario legal drama?

JAG introduced Gibbs, DiNozzo and Abby in its 2003 episodes "Ice Queen" and "Meltdown", then ended two years later after ten seasons; its spin-off has run more than twice as long.

Criminal Minds' Behavioral Analysis Unit, under Aaron Hotchner, calls the killer it hunts by what shorthand?

Unsub is short for unknown subject, and the Behavioral Analysis Unit builds a profile of the unsub's behaviour long before it has a name or a face.

Bones' heroine Temperance Brennan is based on the life and novels of which real forensic anthropologist?

Kathy Reichs produced the show, and in the Bones universe Brennan writes bestselling novels whose heroine is in turn named Kathy Reichs.

Telly Savalas's bald, lollipop-sucking lieutenant asked "Who loves ya, baby?" in which 1970s series?

Kojak's lollipop first appeared in a December 1973 episode as part of an effort to curb his smoking, one that never quite worked: he went on lighting cigarillos for the rest of the run.

"Let's be careful out there" closed roll call in which 1980s police drama from writer Steven Bochco?

Hill Street Blues' Sergeant Phil Esterhaus delivered the line until actor Michael Conrad died during season four, when Sergeant Lucy Bates kept it going as a tribute.

Which catchphrase, spread by Stan Freberg's 1953 parody record, is forever linked to Dragnet's Sergeant Joe Friday?

"Just the facts, ma'am" was not what Friday usually said: his regular Dragnet line was "All we want are the facts, ma'am", and Stan Freberg's chart-topping 1953 spoof reworded it.

Sofia Helin's The Bridge opens with a body, cut in half, laid on the border between which two countries?

Denmark and Sweden both claim the case because the corpse lies at the midpoint of the Øresund Bridge, forcing Malmö's Saga Norén and Copenhagen's Martin Rohde to work together.

John Thaw's The Sweeney takes its title from Cockney rhyming slang for which Scotland Yard unit?

The Flying Squad is "Sweeney Todd" in Cockney rhyming slang, and the show's timing was pointed: in 1977, midway through its run, the real squad's commander was jailed for corruption.

Who wrote Happy Valley, with Sarah Lancashire's Sergeant Cawood policing the Calder Valley?

Sally Wainwright took the title from what local police call the Calder Valley because of its drug problem, and the series won the 2015 BAFTA for best drama.

David Tennant and Olivia Colman's Broadchurch begins with a boy's body on a beach in which county?

Dorset's Jurassic Coast was chosen by creator Chris Chibnall partly because he lived there and wanted an end to years of travelling the country for shows like Torchwood.

Which actress played DCI Jane Tennison, fighting sexism inside the Met, in Lynda La Plante's Prime Suspect?

Helen Mirren's Tennison was modelled on Jackie Malton, a serving Metropolitan Police detective who advised Lynda La Plante; the role won Mirren three BAFTAs in a row.

Who played Fitz, the chain-smoking criminal psychologist of Jimmy McGovern's Cracker?

Robbie Coltrane, later Hagrid in the Harry Potter films, came to Fitz from sketch comedy such as The Comic Strip, and the hard-drinking, gambling psychologist won him three BAFTAs in a row.

Which Only Fools and Horses star played DI Jack Frost of Denton for 18 years in A Touch of Frost?

David Jason ended it himself at 68, saying Frost had become the oldest detective on British television; a real officer would have retired eight years earlier.

Which actor won four Emmys as gruff Detective Andy Sipowicz across all 12 seasons of NYPD Blue?

Dennis Franz became the show's centre after original star David Caruso quit four episodes into season two, and his four Emmys for Sipowicz came in 1994, 1996, 1997 and 1999.

Michael Chiklis's corrupt LAPD boss Vic Mackey, modelled on the Rampart scandal, led which FX series?

The Shield brought Chiklis the 2002 Emmy for lead actor in a drama, a deliberate break from the soft reputation he had earned on The Commish.

Justified's deputy US marshal Raylan Givens comes from which novelist's story "Fire in the Hole"?

Elmore Leonard ranked Justified among the best adaptations of his work, alongside Get Shorty and Jackie Brown, and folded the show's Rachel into his final novel, Raylan.

Which director shot the $18 million pilot of Boardwalk Empire, Steve Buscemi's Prohibition-era saga?

Martin Scorsese had not directed television since a 1986 Amazing Stories episode, and the Atlantic City boardwalk was rebuilt on an empty Brooklyn lot for $5 million.

Who played Midsomer Murders' DCI Tom Barnaby from 1997 to 2011?

John Nettles, already famous as Jersey detective Jim Bergerac, handed over to Neil Dudgeon's John Barnaby, written in as Tom's younger cousin, which kept a DCI Barnaby in charge.

Starsky & Hutch's red car with the white "vector" stripe, nicknamed the "striped tomato", was which model?

The Ford Gran Torino came from Ford's studio loan fleet, and the show made it so popular that Ford sold a limited run of striped factory replicas in 1976.

Kenneth Branagh and Krister Henriksson both played Kurt Wallander, based in which Swedish town?

Ystad, a medieval port in Scania, now draws tourists on the strength of Henning Mankell's detective, and even the BBC's English-language films with Branagh were shot on its streets.

Z-Cars, the BBC's 1962 to 1978 patrol-car series, was set in Newtown, a stand-in for Kirkby near which city?

Liverpool's post-war housing estate at Kirkby inspired Newtown, and fewer than half of Z-Cars' 801 episodes survive in the archive.

Jack Warner's constable opened which BBC series, running 1955 to 1976, with a salute and "Evening, all"?

Dixon of Dock Green brought PC George Dixon back from the dead: Jack Warner's constable had been shot and killed in the 1950 film The Blue Lamp, yet he played him on television until he was 80.

Gomorrah, the Sky series about Naples' Camorra clans, was created by which author, adapting his own book?

Roberto Saviano was put under police protection in 2006, when the book's naming of Camorra clans brought death threats; the series it inspired ran for five seasons.

Only Murders in the Building's podcasting trio live in which Upper West Side apartment block?

The Arconia is fictional, but you can walk past it: the exterior shots are of the Belnord, a real Upper West Side apartment block.

Who played "Book 'em, Danno" boss Steve McGarrett in the original Hawaii Five-O?

Jack Lord nearly captained another show: by William Shatner's account he was offered Star Trek's Captain Kirk, asked for half ownership and lost the part. Hawaii Five-O then ran 12 seasons.

In Better Call Saul's monochrome flash-forwards, fugitive Saul Goodman runs an Omaha Cinnabon as whom?

Gene Takavić is the identity sold to him by Ed Galbraith, the "disappearer", and the Omaha scenes open the first five season premieres before taking over the show's final episodes.

Which 1970s private eye charged "$200 a day, plus expenses" from a Malibu beach trailer?

Jim Rockford, James Garner's ex-convict investigator in The Rockford Files, always quoted the fee up front, yet for all his insistence he scraped a hand-to-mouth living.