From ‘Sugar’ To ‘Monsieur Spade’: Old-School TV Detectives Are Having A Moment

Mickey Haller, and Sam Spade, and John Sugar — oh my! 

If you’re craving a modernized old-school detective series in 2024, you don’t need to hire a private eye to find one. Mysteries with protagonists who rock snazzy suits, drive classic cars, and solve crimes using wits instead of weapons are becoming streaming service staples — and I, for one, can’t get enough.

On Netflix, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo brings Mickey Haller to life in The Lincoln Lawyer, a series adaptation of the 2011 film and 2005 novel by Michael Connelly. While technically a criminal defense lawyer in title, the charming attorney takes high-stakes cases and puts his life on the line to help clients, going the extra mile to seek out the truth and investigate across Los Angeles in his beautiful blue 1963 Lincoln Continental convertible. On Apple TV+’s Sugar, Colin Farrell sails through those same LA streets in a vintage baby blue Corvette as John Sugar, an enigmatic private investigator who enjoys knocking back whiskey, romanticizing classic noir films, and helping people however he can. Though he scours social media and online search results for leads, he feels plucked from a past era, like Clive Owen’s character Sam Spade in AMC+’s Monsieur Spade. The limited series follows the legendary detective from Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon in 1963, when he comes out of retirement in the South of France after a group of nuns are murdered at a local convent.

With shows like True Detective, Sherlock, Luther, Broadchurch, Mare of Easttown, Only Murders in the Building, and more populating the genre over the past two decades, it’s no secret that on-screen private eyes are in high demand and have long-delighted viewers. But a recent slate of series that pays homage to past greats proves old-school detectives are having a modern-day resurgence — and for good reason!

As with any detective series, there’s an obvious satisfaction derived from watching mysteries get solved and justice get served. But old-school detectives like those in The Lincoln Lawyer, Sugar, and Monsieur Spade bring something extra to the table; an arguably cooler allure. It’s easy to save the day if you’re heavily armed and have a wealth of resources at your disposal, but cracking cases with your own cleverness and defeating bad guys without guns takes far more skill — something murder mystery maven Rian Johnson knows all too well.

In 2023, on the heels of his popular whodunits Knives Out and Glass Onion, Johnson created Peacock’s mystery-of-the-week series, Poker Face, which finds Natasha Lyonne channeling her inner Peter Falk as yet another an old-school TV sleuth. Lyonne’s Charlie Cale traded expensive suits for more accessible thrifted numbers, but she still solves crimes using good old-fashioned intuition (in this case, she’s a human lie detector) and drives a classic car (a 1969 sky blue Plymouth Barracuda) with a whole lot of personality.

The series was born from Johnson’s love of 1970s and ’80s detective series like Columbo, which he (and many others) began binge-watching during the COVID lockdown. Poker Face finds success, in part, because it replicates the format of Richard Levinson and William Link’s beloved series, revealing the crime, the victims, and the killer in the first act of each episode. But like the three series mentioned above, it also utilizes other components beyond the characters’ cool attitudes and even cooler cars.

Today’s old-school detective series follow in Columbo‘s footsteps by casting compelling, charismatic leads — the kind of people you want to root for and watch mystery after mystery. Those lead characters have motivating moral codes that strike a perfect balance between hard-boiled and gentle-hearted. And they solve crimes with seemingly unconventional, simplistic, and old-fashioned tactics. (Their brains!) Just one more thing: Today’s takes on detectives past successfully understand and harness the comforting power of nostalgia.

Though Columbo solved his last case decades ago, the love of old-school detectives endures. The episode orders might not be as large, but the entertainment, allure, and style of TV’s most famous private eyes lives on in current characters like Charlie Cale, Mickey Haller, Sam Spade, John Sugar, and more.

New episodes of Sugar premiere Fridays on Apple TV+.