Down these European mean streets: Contemporary issues in European television crime drama

The TV crime drama is one of the most popular genres for European audiences and arguably also the most culturally sensitive and nuanced. No doubt, this is an effect of the ways in which the genre feeds on social problems and cultural change. The crime drama series is therefore like the proverbial ‘canary down the mine’ when it comes to detecting significant social issues and concerns. It routinely serves as a prism from which to observe the local, national and even transnational issues that are prevalent in a society at any one time. Indeed, the vitality of the genre depends on the fact that it simultaneously points to local narratives of moral and legal problems that are not only cross-cultural but also universal. And it is a recognition the universality of the local that has underpinned the increasingly prevalent transnational exchange of televisual cultural products.