I’m a binger—a binger of just about everything:  books, movies, television.  You can’t leave me alone with a box of chocolates.  I have been known to buy every color of a sweater than has gone on sale.

With books, I’ll read through an entire series by one author and, immediately, read their entire oeuvre.  With TV, I’m even worse.  I usually won’t follow a show until it’s on its last legs. Then, I’ll watch it straight-through.

Of course, this kind of binge and bust cycle also makes me sad and moody when I’m done.  I’ve been a little bit mopey since my Game of Thrones tear.  So the other day, I was so happy to find a show that will allow me to marry my two passions:  detective fiction and binge-watching.

Prime Suspect is a British show that stars Helen Mirren as a shrewd, feisty detective trying to make her way in the all-male world of the precinct.  A tall no-nonsense, short-cropped blonde, the protagonist is in middle-age and mid-stride in a career that has left little stress lines of faint, but attractive, wrinkles around her mouth.

When we first meet her, Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison has just transferred departments on the force.  She is supposedly a figure of some authority, but really only a marginal presence in the testosterone-charged world where men still drink and smoke and cuss indiscriminately in the workplace.

Prime Suspect is a police procedural and is a working class counterpoint to the smooth, elegant world of Mad Men.  This world is a holdover from a time when men behaved like monkeys.  This is a chauvinist world—one that hardly bothers to hide this fact under the fig leaf of political correctness—and Detective Tennison has to literally wedge her way into the investigation of a murder that turns out to be one of six serial killings.

Immediately, everybody hates her and perhaps for good and bad reasons:  the lead detective kicks the bucket while questioning the main suspect.  Tennison strikes while the iron is hot and demands that she be put in charge of the investigation.  It’s a ballsy move and she finds herself in the middle of an investigation, leading a group of detectives who are already inclined to despise her.  Top of the list is the ex-partner to the recently deceased–her nemesis who will stop at nothing to humiliate her.

Meanwhile, she’s got a family life to contend with—a commonlaw husband whose business is floundering, a stepchild who is soon to become a regular fixture on the domestic scene.  There are some great role reversals.  The husband whines, mouthing the usual complaint reserved for the stereotypical female:  you’re never around for me…all you think about is your work…I always feel like I’m playing second fiddle…why is it always about you, never me.  It’s funny to watch a paunchy, jowly middle-aged man mouth the kind of lopsided dialog usually reserved for the marginal female character that everybody hates.  It revivifies that cliché of dialog, injecting parody and satire—all the while humanizing what otherwise is drivel.

This is no mean feat.

The genius in all this is that the domestic element is not just a side-note but a component of suspense.  Things get dramatic precisely because Detective Tennison has to balance the business of mothering and wifing with the smack-down that is detectiving.  When she chooses to question a far-flung suspect–possibly missing the last evening train—she knows that she will not be home in time to make her famous avocado dip for her husband’s client.  This charges the interview with several layers of consequence.  When she does indeed make it home in the nick of time with a bag full of groceries (that her man-assistant has purchased), she is shattered to find out her husband has canceled the dinner party.

He knew she would be late…as always.

Prime Suspect aired in the nineties, so it also the perfect show to binge-watch because it has stood the test of time and won numerous awards.  It is widely available, streaming on Netflix.   And another bonus:  it looks back to the recent past and so this nineties show has the feel of the eighties:  clothes, hair, make-up—these elements are back in style with a vengeance nowadays but there is no affectation in all this display.  In this show, there is no attempt to glamorize that period in the way that young folks evoke nostalgia for an era they never lived in.  The trousers, overcoats, jackets have all been stained and rumpled.  Like the detectives, they are not any worse for the wear.  Indeed, they are improved.