Watchable the week of February 1, 2021

The Investigation (Feb. 1, 10 p.m., HBO and Crave)

It might seem counterintuitive given how much time and attention are devoted to crime shows on TV, but real detective work doesn’t seem glamorous; it seems like a slog: hours spent poring over CCTV footage or reading and re-reading case files.

That point is ably made in this Danish series, which is devoted to the painstaking work that went into convicting the killer in the so-called “Submarine Case.”

On Aug. 10, 2017, Swedish journalist Kim Wall boarded a homemade submarine just off Copenhagen for an interview with its owner, Peter Madsen, and was never seen alive again. Her torso was found on a beach 11 days later; her severed head and limbs deep underwater two months later.

One might think finding a torso covered in stab wounds and body parts that had been weighted and sunk in the sea might be a slam dunk for a homicide conviction, but that wasn’t the case, despite the fact that Madsen — who is not shown in the series and never even named — had a predilection for violent porn and snuff films.

But prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen (Pilou Asbaek, “Game of Thrones”) makes it clear he needs more than that and it’s up to lead detective Jens Moller (Soren Malling) and his team to find it.

Their search is frustrating and dispiriting, not least because their best evidence is at the bottom of the strait between Denmark and Sweden. A team of divers spends many, many hours essentially hunting for needles in a watery haystack until the search area is narrowed down with the help of radar data, cadaver dogs and analysis of water currents (writer and director Tobias Lindholm used the real divers in the series, as well as the real dogs).

And still, with every victory comes a setback. The case is finally made when detective Maibritt Porse (Laura Christensen), the only woman on the team, finds an overlooked contradiction in the ever-changing story of the accused by spending hours just re-reading case notes.

What I appreciated about the series besides its attention to detail was its subtlety and its devotion to “show, don’t tell.” For instance, when Jens leaves the home of Kim’s parents, Ingrid and Joachim (Pernilla August and Rolf Lassgard), having just shown them a drawing of the stab wounds in their daughter’s torso, the only indication of the extreme emotion he’s feeling is the sight of his red-rimmed, brimming eyes in his car’s rearview mirror.

Some might be frustrated by the lack of attention paid to the perpetrator of the crime, but I found “The Investigation” rewarding and fascinating. We already have plenty of the other type of crime shows.

And if you’re up for another series that focuses on the detailed work involved in catching killers, watch “The Pembrokeshire Murders” (Feb. 2, BritBox), a dramatized account of how detective Steve Wilkins (Luke Evans) and his team used a re-examination of forensic evidence in a string of burglaries to connect suspect John Cooper (Keith Allen) to two decades-old double murders in Wales. The companion documentary “The Pembrokeshire Murders: Catching the Gameshow Killer” comes to BritBox the same day.

Pretty Hard Cases (Feb. 3, 9 p.m., CBC and CBC Gem)

Some things are better in pairs: socks, gloves . . . women TV detectives.

In fact, “Pretty Hard Cases” is never better than when Meredith MacNeill and Adrienne C. Moore are onscreen together as Detective Sam Wazowski, a member of the guns and gangs squad, and Detective Kelly Duff, a drug squad member.

Sam is what Kelly describes as a “law and order” cop (also “a Karen”), devoted to rules and regulations, confident in the ability of her “five-point plan” to get crooks off the streets. Kelly describes herself as a “serve and protect” cop. Her approach is more intuitive, her methods residing in the grey zone, but she also gets results.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say they bond, at least not in the two episodes I reviewed, but they find common ground and mutual respect, partly because they both want the same outcome, partly because they’re both women who’ve carved a place for themselves in a man’s world.

Take their “meet cute” in the opening scenes of the premiere. Sam is staking out a player in a drug gang as Kelly approaches him undercover as a bag lady. There’s an arduous foot chase involving a bag of drugs, and Sam and Kelly are threatened with guns, but it’s their male colleague, Barry Hamm (Dean McDermott), who takes the suspect in, after casually strolling over once the hard work’s been done and exclaiming cheerfully, “Hey, we got one.”

What grounds the comedy is that Sam and Kelly are characters rather than caricatures.

Sam can be annoying — as her boss Edwina Shanks, nicely played by Karen Robinson of “Schitt’s Creek,” points out — but she’s recalibrating her place in the world as a divorced single mother, with a teenage son who mostly ignores her.

There are hints that Kelly, who’s much more reticent than oversharer Sam, has acquired her tough demeanour through a difficult past; and she feels beholden to a mentor, suspended cop Jeff Keegan (Tony Nappo), who might be deeper into the grey zone than she feels comfortable going.

Whatever their foibles and flaws, taken together Sam and Kelly, and MacNeill and Moore, are a delight to watch.

Also new to CBC Gem, on Feb. 1, are three shows in honour of Black History Month. “Hip Hop: The Songs That Shook America” examines six groundbreaking hip-hop songs, beginning with Kanye West’s “Jesus Walks.” Documentary “Giants of Africa” explores the basketball youth programs set up in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and Rwanda by Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri. And “Sherman’s Showcase” is a mockumentary about a spoof Black-focused variety show starring Bashir Salahuddin.

Short Takes

Firefly Lane (Feb. 3, Netflix)

I really wanted to love this drama, an adaptation of the bestselling Kristin Hannah novel, not least because it was co-produced by Vancouver’s Brightlight Productions, shot in Vancouver and stars several Canadian actors, chiefly Sarah Chalke (“Scrubs,” “How I Met Your Mother”). The story of two women — straight arrow Kate (Chalke) and free but troubled spirit Tully (Katherine Heigl) — who meet as teenagers and remain friends for decades hits the expected sentimental notes but doesn’t penetrate all the way through to the heart, at least not for me. Netflix also has Season 2 of “Tiffany Haddish Presents: They Ready” debuting on Feb. 2.

Greenland (Feb. 5, Amazon Prime Video)

If you can get past the silliness of some of the plotting in this disaster flick you might enjoy it in a “things could be worse” kind of way, as in we’re stuck  in a seemingly never-ending pandemic, but it could be worse: at least fragments of a comet aren’t hurtling toward Earth, threatening to wipe out 75 per cent of life on the planet. Gerard Butler, the so-called ordinary man action hero, stars as a husband and father who must get his wife and kid (Morena Baccarin and Roger Dale Floyd) to sanctuary before a massive chunk of comet causes an “extinction-level” event. 

Holmes Family Effect (Feb. 7, about 10 p.m., CTV)

CTV has a lot of faith in this reality series, giving it the prime post-Super Bowl slot (before it moves to its regular time Sundays at 8 p.m.), but celebrity contractor Mike Holmes is a proven TV commodity. Here, he and his children Michael and Sherry combine renovations with stories that will put a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye. Each of the renos involves projects and people that are making a difference in their communities. In the first episode, for instance, the Holmes rebuild classrooms in the home renovation and woodworking program at Judith Nyman Secondary School in Brampton, an institution that gives students who don’t fit in at more traditional schools a path to meaningful futures in hands-on careers. (It has even given the world one famous comedian in Russell Peters.) You could do worse, in the bleakness of a pandemic winter, than to watch someone doing nice things for other people who do nice things.