TV Detective World Series Round 1 - Tyler vs Dowling

It's time for another 1st round battle in the TV Detective World Series! Here at the Murder Mystery Company we have been trying to answer the important questions, and at the top of the list is just who is the best TV crime fighting sleuth? You have been voting in your droves, and the second round is set to be a real fight... But for now, the first round nears its conclusion!

[polldaddy poll=6936142]

Judge's Overview

This one looks to be a most interesting bout, with time travelling coma victim Sam Tyler stepping out against Chicago's favourite crime solving Catholic priest, Father Frank Dowling.

Through 43 episodes and three seasons viewers were gripped in their tens as Richie Cunningham's dad swapped Happy Days for a dog collar and stepped out to clean up the streets, using his own blend of friendly cunning and religious fervour.

Sam Tyler, meanwhile, won the hearts of millions when TV executives realised that police shows these days were a bit dull and wasn't it more fun in the seventies when everyone was drinking, smoking, punching everyone, not wearing seatbelts and calling suspects 'slags'. Slipping into a coma following an accident, Sam is transported back to the seventies where his by-the-book politically correct police procedural mind is thrown into the world of hard drinking, hard hitting, hard arteried hard man DI Gene Hunt. And then called a slag.

This one is going to come down to whether the voters prefer the time shifting shenannigans of a show that starts in the noughties and ends in the seventies, or one that spanned the glory years of 1989-1991 but looks like it might have been made even earlier than that.

As ever, you decide. Voting closes in one month's time. If you fear that the wait will cause you to explode in anticipation then please feel free to spend the interim examining our award winning murder mysteries over at The Murder Mystery Company's main website!

Next time...