The last time special agent Dale Cooper was on our TV screens, he wasn’t in the best of places. The charmingly boyish fop who also happened to be the FBI’s shrewdest investigator was seemingly trapped in the creepy Black Lodge when Twin Peaks went off-air 25 years ago, imprisoned by his evil doppelganger. We’ll find out what’s happened to him since in a few days’ time.
Quite frankly, I’ll just be glad to see his friendly face again. One of Twin Peaks’ greatest strengths is that for all the sleazy secrets of its surreal American small town, its hero is never anything less than charming and cheerful; whether he’s tasked with solving a gruesome murder, hunting down malevolent spirits or just trying to keep the peace among the locals, he’s always got time for a winning quip, a goofy smile and heartfelt praise for a damn fine cup of coffee.
His return feels especially welcome at a time when rude, waspish TV detectives have become the norm – the kind whose aloof mannerisms serve as a cliched shorthand for their genius. And they’re not snippy in the same way that, say, Poirot was a fusspot or Morse was irascible or Rebus short-tempered. These are tempestuous teenagers in need of constant affirmation of their greatness.
Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock is the most egregiously mardy of these crime-solvers. “Sherlock Holmes is a great man,” declares Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade in the first series, when asked why he puts up with his rudeness. “And someday, if we’re lucky, he might even be a good one.” Sherlock repays him by repeatedly forgetting his name, yet his gang continue to forgive him for dismissing their piddly emotions and inferior intellects.
When Cooper finds himself the subject of Audrey Horne’s teenage crush, he lets her down with gentle kindness; over at 221B Baker Street, Sherlock habitually makes a fool of the similarly besotted Molly Hooper, bluntly drawing attention to her crafty application of lipstick or assuming her offer of a coffee means she’s going to fetch one for him. The most recent series suggested he was rediscovering long-buried reserves of empathy, but the show’s humour is built on the idea that the brilliantly cold and caustic Holmes needn’t bother with anything as mundane as social niceties.
Over in Broadchurch, David Tennant’s DI Hardy – or, as his colleagues sagely nickname him, “Shit Face” – is renowned for his sourpuss demeanour, recoiling with horror when Olivia Colman’s DI Miller suggests a trip to the pub, as if he’d rather be tasked with catching a thousand violent criminals than making awkward small-talk over a pint.
These characters tend to play into the most tiresome cliches of tortured savant, as if being really clever and being friendly are mutually exclusive. They tend to be men, too. The Killing’s Sarah Lund was so skilled at alienating loved ones it became a running joke to see her eating a solitary dinner straight from the cooking pot, while The Fall’s Stella Gibson has a remarkably icy poker-face – but they don’t receive the same bizarre hero-worship. Idris Elba’s Luther (friendlier than most, but still prone to skulking London’s backstreets like a macho, Met-approved Holden Caulfield) is such an enigma that a dangerous killer tracks down his ex, all so they can discuss what makes him tick. When Watson’s wife Mary records a video message ahead of her death, she chooses not to address it to her husband or child, but to Sherlock. You can’t blame them for being self-obsessed when everyone fawns over them so readily.
The annoying implication is that they’re good at their jobs precisely because they’re maladjusted, as if time-consuming social fripperies like remembering people’s names might make you miss a vital clue. Not friendly, smiley Dale Cooper, who gathers valuable information by making pals rather than belittling people, and whose oddball habits – his interest in Tibetan meditation, his Dictaphone chitchat – are charming quirks rather than gloomy affectations. I’ll be pleased to see him again: a sleuth whose smarts are never in question, but one who, somehow, also manages not to be an anti-social arsehole.
