you know, I don't even like detective fiction

[raven]

edited to add: I'm delighted people are liking and linking to this post! If you haven't seen the show and you want to read this with the spoiler tags in place, can I recommend clicking here for the day view.

I love this show so much I am supposed to be writing a reasonable and measured - er - review of it for The F-Word, but pending that, here is a list of things in no particular order that I love about Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries:

-The clothes, oh my god, the dresses, the shoes, I would go forth on a battlefield in those Mary Janes, also HATS;

(Also the way Jack's hat seems to have become a weird harbinger for Bad Things, e.g. it gets shot off in one episode and used as a hiding-place for the murderer's calling card in another. Men on the whole look good in hats. They should bring those back.)

-Relatedly, the female gaze! I noticed this from the very first episode and then couldn't stop noticing it: men, in this universe, are mostly around for eye-candy. The beautiful ballet dancer, the students, the boxer - the camera lingers on them in this fabulously blatant way that is good for my soul even though I'm not super-into men. It's the way it's a conscious choice to make women happy. (Yeah, that's remarkable. Urgh.) Also I love how we always see the debris of Phryne's sex life obliquely. Sparkly shoe hung off the chandelier. Yep.

-Relatedly to that, the period detail! Shim noticed one I'd missed: the champagne glasses are both flat Marie Antoinette glasses, and flutes, because this is the period of transition, and I'm sure there are a dozen other things like that that I wouldn't know to look for.

-Dr Mac, the best, butchest, most beautiful lesbian on television. (She's so hot, oh my god.) My major criticism of the series thus far is the criminal underuse of Mac, plus she needs an actual live girlfriend to have adventures with. Oh, but Mac is so lovely! And I love that that Mac's defining feature isn't her lesbianism - it's that she's on the edge of the law for her work providing contraception and abortion and other help to women. Also she and Jack agreeing that if they ever had to repopulate the species he'd be her first pick, but until then ladies. I love them.

-The Honourable Phryne Fisher and Inspector Jack Robinson, the only crimefighting duo in the history of the world to fight crime while cosplaying as Antony and Cleopatra. (Sometimes only in their heads.) Actually, yes, that: I love Phryne and Jack as avenging angels. I love that they both can - and do - solve mysteries alone, because neither of them is the sidekick, but together they shine so, so brightly, and, here is the next point which is so important it's going on the next line:

-Jack never rescues Phryne from anything. Never once, in the whole series. He breaks down doors to find Phryne has got a bad guy pinned down ready for him to arrest. That's how it goes.

-Because Jack is the outlier in a female-driven universe. Even the episode that in other shows would be all about him, where he finally gets divorced, is instead Phryne's arc-plot episode, with him in the background. And I think that works so well, with such sweetness: he's there by the graveside, holding her hand, but the camera's on her; it's her story.

-Oh, ladies and their stories! Dot's story, and Jane's story too: I love how Phryne adopts them and loves them and supports their choices and loves them some more. And no woman is demonised in this narrative, no matter what. Even Aunt Prudence, who is set up right from the beginning to be Aunt Agatha and turns out to be Aunt Dahlia instead; and even Rosie Sanderson, who I was not expecting to break my heart, oh my god. I mean, I was pleased that she's not portrayed as evil or That Woman or anything like that - it seems very clear that her and Jack's divorce was quite mutual and even amenable, but then at the end, when the whole arc plot comes out. Rosie can deal with her father being arrested and her fiancé too, she can deal with her divorce and her ex-husband's inexplicable relationship with Phryne Fisher: what breaks her is the thought of the little girls in the ship, being taken away to horrors. What breaks her is that anyone she loved could have done such a thing to innocents. I teared up.

-And, of course, in the end they're such a ridiculously delightful found family. They have firearms in the kitchen and enough whisky to drown in and Mac's "medicinal powders" and the family communists endure Jack Robinson, Enemy of the Revolutionary Proletariat, and they all love each other and it's all Phryne's doing: she returns to Australia by herself, and her glorious household is what she's built.

In conclusion: I love this show a lot you should all watch it. Er.

Comments

[philomytha]

Yes yes all of this. I am so looking forwards to more of this show.

[raven]

Me tooo. I'm almost glad I discovered it now and not two years ago, so there's not so long to wait!

[sir_guinglain]

I've only seen one Miss Fisher, but it was intelligent Doctor Who fanfic (and apparently the book it's based on even more so), therefore I approve. ;p

[raven]

Which episode was that? None of them struck me particularly as DW fanfic...

[sir_guinglain]

There's one set in a theatre which borrows names (in passing) and situations from The Talons of Weng-Chiang, but takes them in a different direction.

[raven]

Ah, yes, Ruddy Gore! I've never seen Weng-Chiang, cos, you know, racism, but that's a great episode. Actually Phryne as the Doctor is a lovely lens through which to see the show, though she's less cavalier about her companions.

[musesfool]

I love it so much! The clothes! The ladies! How you expect Dot and Aunt P to be stuffy and disapproving and they're not!

I also love Jack and Hugh and Bert and Cec and MR. BUTLER. ALWAYS READY TO LEND A HAND.

[raven]

YES! Oh, Aunt P - when she tells Mary that she'll basically beat up the entire Catholic Church if she has to, I might have punched the air. :)

And Mr Butler, for all your champagne and shotgun needs! Shipping Dot and Hugh quietly, introducing them to the fine art of blackmail!

[cosmic_llin]

Oh god I so desperately need to watch this!

[raven]

Yes you DO. You really do. :)

[soupytwist]

YES YES YES YES OMG OMG OMG.

I agree with absolutely everything you said, including the under use of Dr Mac - who is delightful and subversive and SMOKIN HOT OH GOD.

And especially the comment about the female gaze: I like to think of the whole series (and the books too) as basically being detective fiction through the female gaze. The sparklingly genius detective is a woman! The beautiful people who are there to look pretty are all men! The female victims/random civilians are all treated with SUCH love and respect, even the ones who are funny: it's episodic, but not so much that we don't learn a lot about a lot of people's lives, in a way that says that matters. The clothes matter. Dot's baking matters. (I LOVE the bit where she realises it really does matter, that SHE matters to her church and its community. It nearly makes me cry just like the Rosie Sanderson bit.) And so many mysteries in the show are solved because Dot knows about something domestic, or because someone is underestimated due to being a woman, or whatever! And I think even the Jack/Rosie divorce thing is part of that: it's a female-gaze, female-positive view of the whole concept of the Other Woman. Amazing.

And omg does it make me want to clutch things and make high pitched noises, omg. :D :D

[raven]

SO MANY HIGH-PITCHED NOISES. We finally got to the end of s2 a couple of days back and I am blown away by the epic, epic, it's-literally-making-everyone-else-uncomfortable sexual tension in "Hemi-parasitic, of the genus Viscum." (!!!)

But yes yes! I hadn't thought of Jack and Rosie in that light but, you know, yes. No one blames Rosie for making her own choice, least of all Jack; instead, it's all about how it would've been so hard, to have a shell-shocked partner you no longer really know. Even the random women who only appear in one episode have so much complexity! I'm so happy about this damn show. :)

[soupytwist]

OMG S2 is amazing for that and ahahah IT REALLY LITERALLY IS MAKING EVERYONE UNCOMFORTABLE. WHen they finally get together pretty much everyone will be like, oh thank GOD now maybe there will be less awkward hanging in doorways and Meaningful Glances. Hee.

Even the way it treats the war is totally female-gaze-y: there's no thrilling heroics of badass manliness, it's all about what it means emotionally to the people who survived, the traumatized soldiers and the people who had to clean the wounds and bury the dead (and the fact that the distinctions between those categories aren't always easy to make). So wonderful.

[raven]

Yes OMG. I mean, Hugh and Dot clearly gossip about it. Maybe they have a pool on it. Maybe Mr Butler has the pool on it. :) :)

Yes! Yes, that's so true and not something I'd thought of: the show makes no distinction between the soldiers - the ones in the seance episode, and Jack and Bert and Cec - and Phryne's war experience driving ambulances. It wasn't somehow glorious, that they were soldiers: It's all awful and needs to be come to terms with. I think that's one of my favourite things about the show.

[soupytwist]

Hahahah, I think either Mr Butler or Dr Mac has a pool, definitely!

That's so true, and the commonality in their war experience is so important for bonding them together. Phryne GETS war experience because she shares it, and Jack explicitly understands that. (I think Bert and Cec do too, although I don't remember if they share it quite as clearly.)

And that's another great thing about Phryne - she was so YOUNG when she did all the ambulance-driving, and the show lets her be! She wasn't always the masterful figure she is now, she was a kid and she was sad and she had stuff happen to her that sucked and which left her frightened and vulnerable and hurt. She's STILL an amazing badass of glittery crime-fighting fabulousness. I love that SO MUCH.

[lamentables]

I am adding you to the list of terrible people who force me to spend money. *glares*

[raven]

I regret NOTHING. :) :)

[wendelah1]

Here via musesfool. Yes, to all of this. tree got me hooked, and now my spouse and adult son are fans, too. We can't wait for the new episodes. In the meanwhile, we just keep rewatching the first two seasons.

[raven]

My partner and I have gone back to the beginning as well! Hopefully it won't be too long of a wait. :)

[dejla]

Oh, yes! All of those things -- and I love the books just as much!

[raven]

I haven't read them, but so many people have said I ought to - I really should give them a try!

[dejla]

The books are actually very much more with the details -- and with the subplots. In the books, Phryne has two adopted daughters (one of whom rescued herself) and Jane's backstory is heartbreaking. The story of the Queenscliff robbery is very different from the script.

They aren't cozies and they're not quite noir -- and they are very definitely female-gaze based. The LGBT element is very open and Phryne is completely accepting of it -- oh, that sounds wrong. This is a post-WWI series where people are what they are, and Phryne protects the people she comes across and at one point steals compromising photographs so that one of her acquaintances won't be exposed.

And--because Phryne in the book wears it, I tried Guelein's Jicky and am now a confirmed wearer of the perfume.

[alizarin_nyc]

Yay! What you said.

I resisted this show for SO LONG. I watched the pilot a long time ago when it first came out and thought it was terrible. Then other people told me to watch it and I thought it was terrible. I tried again. Terrible. I tried again... okay, fine, not so bad, look at the clothes! I kept going. I kept going....

I FINALLY GOT IT. Because I wasn't looking at it properly. It isn't a detective show, not really. It's not bleak and grim like my favorite British series. It has compassion and pathos, but it's also FUN. And feminist. And therefore gets all the hearts.

[raven]

Ah, no, I think I'd object to that last! I don't know much about the Australian detective tradition, but certainly there's a grand British tradition of cosy mysteries - the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Pie in the Sky, etc - and I think it fits in there, with a lovely feminist dash of Dorothy L. Sayers and Lord Peter Wimsey. Especially that last, I think: it's even contemporaneous with it, and has the same thing where the detectives are having their own complex romance in between the murders! But, yes, compared to things like Sherlock and Shetland and Inspector Lynley, it's much more of a delightful confection. :)

[alizarin_nyc]

Yes, true! Cosy mysteries, clever detectives, dash of derring-do.

Shetland! Isn't that a great series? I was even thinking darker, like Broadchurch and The Fall and Wallander and Hinterland.

Thus, Miss Fisher is a really great getaway from all that, and I long for season three... :)

[wildestranger]

Yes, all of this. So many amazing things! The Communist servants. Seriously, she has communist servants. Also, the way Jack keeps sneaking her alcohol. How all of Dot's choices are respected by Miss Fisher, and how Dot learns to respect them herself.

AND. When Jack discovers that the current situation isn't working for him, he doesn't ask her to change, he just tries to remove himself from a toxic situation. How often do we see people do that on TV? It was beautiful if painful to watch.

[raven]

Yes! Yes yes yes. I loved that so much. Okay admittedly he takes a while to get there, he does have his little phase of drinking alone, but then, you're absolutely right - he just sets his boundaries, rather than trying to change her or let himself get hurt worse than he already has. I actually think they don't resolve it as well as they could - there's so much that happens in the next episode it sort of gets crowded out - but it's such an amazing bit of TV. Though, as you say, painful as all hell.

[eccentric_hat]

I started watching this show last year when I couldn't stand to watch Downton Abbey any longer but was somehow having trouble looking away--until I followed a Tumblr recommendation for Miss Fisher, and it distracted me in all the best ways. All the pretty 1920s costumes were now on coherently written characters! Women were making decisions that made sense! I've fallen behind since letting my Netflix subscription expire, but I should get back to it; my public library has the DVDs...

[raven]

Women were making decisions that made sense! - that's it, that's the show. :) :)

[deathbyshinies]

I don't watch the show, and have never read the books, but can I just say how surprisingly pleasing and pleasurable it is to find you turning your talented hand to writing stories about Australian characters, set in Australia?

I just... I've seen it go the other way so many times, and written so many stories about British characters and settings myself, it is giving me an almost startling amount of joy to see the flow of energy and attention being channelled in the other direction.

[raven]

Ah, I'm pleased that it's giving you joy! The only other Australian show I've ever seen much of is The Circuit, but I do occasionally get told to watch things by brightlywoven. :)

[st_aurafina]

MAAAAAC! I love Mac so much! She's my big swoony crush.

Season three is supposed to be airing later this year. Cannot wait.

[raven]

Me neither! Hopefully LOTS MORE MAC yes. :)

[msilverstar]

Watching with my daughter, definitely a feminist hoot, wish-fulfillment, idfic, and fantastic clothes!

My favorite recent bit has been Also [Mac] and Jack agreeing that if they ever had to repopulate the species he'd be her first pick, but until then ladies

[raven]

Heee! I love Jack's expression of total resignation at the prospect. Also, more seriously, I love that the three of them have come so far that they can just casually make jokes like that, it's such a delightful friendship.

[woldy]

Yes! I shall point people to this :-D

[raven]

Hurrah! :)

[selenay]

They have firearms in the kitchen and enough whisky to drown in and Mac's "medicinal powders" and the family communists endure Jack Robinson, Enemy of the Revolutionary Proletariat, and they all love each other and it's all Phryne's doing: she returns to Australia by herself, and her glorious household is what she's built.

All of this is solidly wonderful gold, but this. THIS. This is why I love the show so very, very much.

[raven]

Me tooo. It is such a beautiful kick in the face to the loner detective archetype.

[starlady]

I need to watch this show.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yes! YES!!!

Um. I mean, I sedately and completely am in agreement with your reasonable and measured statements.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I AM REASONABLE AND MEASURED! ALL THE TIME. :) :)

[jessikast]

Have you read the books, or plan to? I started with books first, then watch the TV series as I finished the book the episode was based off (which sometimes took a while as they're not in the same order, but was quicker in S2 as more episodes are new stories).

There are equally lush descriptions of clothes in the books, and Phyrne is equally wonderful. The interesting thing for me is that I ship Jack/Phyrne LEIK WHOA on the TV series, but in the books Jack is *spoiler* happily married, I don't ship him and Phyrne at all, and yet I still enjoy the characters just as much.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I haven't! I may give them a try, now I've finish the series - thank you for the rec!

[jessikast]

The other great thing about the books is that Kerry Greenfield has been prolific - there are TWENTY in the series. (Although the last one *really* reads to me like a Sherlock fanfic, it's very odd. Not bad, just not what I had been expecting!)

Plus, the TV writers changed up some of the "whodunit", so there's a bit of added interest even when you think you know the plot.

[soupytwist.livejournal.com]

Jumping in to be happy that someone else had the same reaction to the books (I really like them, but I don't ship Jack/Phryne in the books at all where in the show I want to smush them together like all the time) and also YES THE LAST ONE IS SO WEIRD. And it IS Sherlock fanfic, basically - the edition I read had a foreword where she basically says that straight up and, if I remember rightly, thanks her fic writing buddies. I still enjoyed the book, but that particular element did not so much work for me.

[jessikast]

I think I might have read an e-book, without the foreword. I remember getting a wee way in and starting to think "waaaaaait a minute, the descriptions of these characters and their FEELINGS are very familiar" and doing some googling to find reviews or an interview or something which confirmed my suspicions. And it's not just generic "Sherlock Holmes" fic, it's very definitely "Sherlock the TV show" fic.

The thing is, I LOVE Sherlock fic, and while on the one hand I was kind of tickled pink to find actual slash fic in a published book by an author I love, it also meant that it wasn't a fantastic Phryne story.

It might have worked better as a bonus short story released online or something like that.