Issue 2: A Touch of Frost (1992–2010)
Messy TV detectives are ADHD icons
Legal drama is a pillar of television as we know it today. Shows that fit this description are comprised of various elements: whodunnits designed to spark debate amongst viewers until the very end, personal drama interwoven into members of the legal system’s dealings with cases that come their way, or a rogue (but brilliant) figurehead at odds with the hegemony in which he exists. Think CSI’s Horatio Cane, Law and Order SVU’s Olivia Benson, Prime Suspect’s Jane Tennison, etc. Oftentimes shows combine the aforementioned elements to form a complex and cohesive whole. I think that many voracious TV-watchers have a comfort crime show. Mine and my parents’ is A Touch of Frost, starring David Jason, which ran from 1992 to 2010.
Frost is epic. I’ve probably spent about 300 hours watching and rewatching the 42 movie-length episodes of which it is comprised. My mother and I know the contents of each episode based on title alone, but still manage to blank out on enough to forget the path taken to the concluding twist. The series itself is all grey skies, saxophone licks, and soggy sandwiches abandoned for a criminal takedown. There is little continuity between episodes barring a handful of characters and a few references to older cases, but one could pick it up in Season 1 just as easily as one could pick it up in Season 8 with little feeling of being lost. This is largely because of the 42-episodes-in-18-years situation (which amounts to roughly 2,3 episodes per annum), and is also due to the fact that each episode is around 100 minutes in length. I feel like presenting these factors at the forefront of my argument for why this show is legendary, you-have-to-watch-it, etc. is probably not the greatest thing to do (I have heard that I have a tendency to sell great things short by listing less than admirable facts as an introduction to a person or a topic). But bear with. I shall redeem myself and my favourite televised rogue.
William Edward ‘Jack’ Frost is an ADHD icon, and I shall tell you why. He is a mess – his paperwork is perpetually disorganised or lost within the void of his ‘filing system’ (i.e. a drawer stuffed with various documents, or a desk piled high with case files and tax returns) to the point where he loses a winning lotto ticket worth £1 000 000 and finds it after the window in which he could claim it. He keeps sandwiches in his desk drawer, old cigarette butts in the ashtray of his car even after ostensibly quitting (to placate the craving with an olfactory reminder), never eats his greens. He is incapable of conforming to authority (we love insurrection).
It is precisely this chaos that makes him so brilliant. Frost carries a set of keys that seems more akin to an anvil, because he possesses every possible key for every possible commonly-available lock imaginable (which comes in handy for unwarranted snooping in suspects’ homes). He is also relentless in his pursuit of justice, however seemingly antithetical that justice stands in relation to the trappings of the legal system in which he finds himself to be a loose (but contributing) canon.
A Touch of Frost is gripping, and is a much-treasured relic in terms of long-running detective shows of television eras past. Check it out if you, too, are a messy ADHD icon in need of seeing a projection of yourself stumble and succeed on the silver screen.
Rating: 8/10
Available on: BBC Britbox, ITV Hub, and Prime Video (or if you really want to commit, buy the DVD Boxset)
Originally published at https://niamhahern.substack.com on November 29th, 2021.
