Better Late Than Never: 'Art Detectives' Season 1 Is Well Crafted

TV is overflowing with detective dramas. Since the 2025-2026 TV season started at the end of May 2025, there has been Dept. Q and Untamed on Netflix; Ballard and Countdown on Prime Video; Code of Silence on Britbox; Smoke on AppleTV+... and that’s just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. It’s so easy for the tried and true genre to become a hackneyed cliche. That’s why it’s such an utter delight when a new twist on the formula comes along, and Acorn TV’s Art Detectives is one of those glorious TV series that works on every level—as an episodic case of the week, as a buddy cop drama, as a simmering overarching mystery and as a compelling character study.

(Also, if you love Stephen Moyer (True Blood) but prefer him when he’s not sucking the blood out of his loved ones, this is definitely the show for you.)

Moyer plays Mick Palmer, a detective inspector with a particular set of skills. He has a vast knowledge and a keen eye for, as the title suggests, art. However, unlike many detectives on TV, Mick appears to be socially and emotionally well-adjusted (for the most part), serving as the lead detective at the Heritage Crime Unit, which, at the start of the series, is a department of one. Then he meets Shazia Malik (an utterly charming Nina Singh), a detective constable working in Yorkshire, where Palmer arrives to investigate the death of an art historian in the series premiere.