Who Loves You, Lynley?

by Rosecrans Baldwin

To try and demonstrate why Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers is the third best detective in contemporary British television, as viewed by me, I bottomed out in YouTube and woke up in a dumpster of mush clips, or mash videos, or something—I have no idea what they’re called, but my eyes are quivering, and I think I rode a unicorn.

If you’ve been following this column and generally agreeing, and you haven’t already watched The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, take my word that Sharon Small as Sgt. Havers is superlative, leagues above and below Lynley (Nathaniel Parker, who’s better seen in Bleak House).

For now, however, I want to focus on these videos.

In the show, in all its seasons, Lynley and Havers never backed the beast, so I can understand Lynley buffs feeling thwarted. And with YouTube and desktop video-editing software, unrequited love can be requited pretty quickly—crib a few scenes from a DVD, overlay a pop song. Ergo this kind of stuff:

But the genre is bigger than Lynley ♥ Havers. YouTube appears to be inundated with tribute videos—sentimental, earnest, frequently tasteless, and less elaborate than fan-fiction, but something more than a slideshow.

I won’t bore you with the results of “Hitler+tribute”—the more unexpected tributes are chilling enough: