TV pathologists

A pathologist turned maverick sleuth in the 1980s series Quincey. The medical examiner (Jack Klugman) investigated deaths where there was a seemingly simple explanation that he turned on its head with careful investigative work. Photograph: PR

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is billed as a forensic drama where the crew crack “the stickiest cases” (literally, it seems) on the mean streets of Las Vegas. The team focus on exploring inconceivable details of crime scenes. Photograph: PR

In classy detective series Morse there was romance amid the blood and gore, as the skill and intelligence of police pathologist Dr Grayling (Amanda Hillwood) melted the eponymous inspector’s heart. Love was thwarted when she was brutally written out. Photograph: ITV/Rex Features

Morse’s sidekick was granted his own series, Lewis, and inherited his own friendly pathologist too, in Dr Laura Hobson (Clare Holman). Photograph: ITV/Rex Features

Silent Witness was created by Nigel McCrery, a former murder squad detective in Nottingham. In it killings are investigated by a team of forensic pathologists, including Emilia Fox as Dr Nikki Alexander. Photograph: PR

Here other pathologists in the Silent Witness team Dr Harry Cunningham (Tom Ward) and Professor Leo Dalton (William Gaminara) investigate a crime scene. Photograph: PR

One of the busiest on-screen pathologists, Dr George Bullard in Midsomer Murders, rarely has just one murder to deal with as bodies pile up in picaresque English villages. Luckily, with the demands made on Bullard (Barry Jackson, right), he is often first on the scene and knows almost instantly how victims died. Photograph: PR

Helen McCrory said she enjoyed playing pathologist Rachel Price in Messiah, despite admitting she is squeamish and refused to attend a real autopsy to research the role. Photograph: PR

Perhaps the most distinguished of our on-screen pathologists, Shakespearean actor Timothy West (left) blustered into New Tricks as a patholgist helping a team of retired detectives who reinvestigate unsolved cases. Here he appears with Jack Halford (James Bolam) and the team's head, and sole serving officer, Supt Pullman (Amanda Redman). Photograph: PR

Ian Richardson - best known as the sleazy Francis Urquhart - donned Victorian garb to play Dr Joseph Bell in Murder Rooms, a drama that suggested how author Authur Conan Doyle was inspired by his medical training and knowledge of pathology to create Sherlock Holmes Photograph: PR