Case Histories

Critique • Quotes • At the movies

Jackson Brodie (Jason Isaacs) is on the case in televised series about Kate Atkinson's private detective.

Sorting out the entanglements of Jackson Brodie

Case Histories (2011–2013): Television series, six one-hour and three 90-minute episodes; directors Marc Jobst and Dan Zeff; writers Ashley Pharaoh, Peter harness and others; featuring Jason Isaacs, Amanda Abbington, Millie Innes, Zawe Ashton, Natasha Little, Kirsty Mitchell, Phil Davis, Rose Leslie

A lot of the appeal of Kate Atkinson's detective-genre novels is her wit and her empathy as she gets into the minds and relationships of the people befriended by private detective Jackson Brodie in the course of his investigations. Much of this falls away in the tighter timeframe of television adaptations. Atkinson's elaborate stories and characters—multiple cases become entangled in each book—are forced into more conventional mystery moulds for the episodes.

The television episodes are still engaging though.

They each introduce Brodie right away and leave him in the narrative spotlight throughout the interlacing plots. This is a departure from the books in which he is brought in after the various tragedies of his clients-to-be are explicated and he is treated as just one of the eccentric personalities caught up in the overlapping dramas.

Jason Isaac's portrayal of the rugged but sympathetic-to-a-fault detective is compulsive watching and anchors the whole series.

But before we go any further, a note on the odd division of episodes. The show's initial season covers the first three Brodie novels—Case Histories, One Good Turn and When Will There Be Good News?—in double episodes. The second season starts with a long, single episode based on the fourth novel, Started Early, Took My Dog and follows with two episodes of original stories, as Atkinson hadn't published any further sequels at that time.

Trailer for first season of the television adaptation of the Jackson Brodie books.

Complaints have been made that what gives the novels their unique characteristics—the exploration of inner lives, the narrative complexity and the overall fatalistic tone—is sanded off in the transition from print to screen. Atkinson's traumatic, character-driven stories have been turned into straightforward mysteries with typical detective tropes and a lighter touch.

This criticism is partly valid. But I've been impressed in the episodes based on the novels by how cleverly the plots and characters have been compressed for briefer television viewing. The original plots, characters and moodiness aren't completrely destroyed.

To do full justice to the depth of Atkinson's writing, we would need each book adapted into a miniseries of six or more episodes, as is commonly done with British adaptations of classic literature. But would many viewers sit through that? Probably, as the source material is so rewarding.

As it is though, the Case Histories series makes for superior, if not great, television viewing.

— Eric

Critique • Quotes • At the movies