Oh come on you lot (especially the girls), how on earth can anyone go past Magnum PI?

I know he wasn't strictly a detective but he always got his baddy, and he looked oh so good while he was chasing them! :D

It's interesting that we all have different perceptions when it comes the the rendering of a character on screen. My favourite Miss Marple by a country mile is Joan Hickson, who I thought portrayed the character to a tee - she played a demure, slightly vague old lady with a deceptively razor sharp mind and an uncanny understanding of the way people operate. Definitely twee - but sometimes only twee will do. I think Agatha Christie, although displaying limited serious literary merit, did give a fairly accurate idea of middle-class values.
Pelican - I like a little Rosemary and Thyme, as well - also used to like Morse, the books just as much as the T.V. show - a little scholarly narrative married to contemporary crime.
Dorothy Sayers thought that Edgar Allen Poe probably laid out the general principles of the detective story between 1840 and 1845. She writes: "Ïn 'The Murders At The Rue Morgue'...he achieved the fusion of two distinct features and created what we may call the story of the mystery...In this fused genre, the reader's blood is first curdled by some horrible and apparently inexplicable murder or portent: the machinery of detection is then brought in to solve and punish the murderer. Since Poe's time, all three branches - detection, mystery and horror have flourished".
Conan Doyle triumphed with his invention of Holmes - interestingly, he was educated in Scotland and probably based based Holmes on doctor Joseph Bell by whom he was tutored.

Dear Poirot,

My favourite is Sherlock Holmes.
He was one eccentric guy!
Just my cup of tea.

Even more so, after watching the latest
version on DVD - with the superb actor,
Robert Downey Jr., and Jude Law as Watson.
I loved the "dark-side" of Holmes in this
story. Far more interesting.

Dear Foxy,

I have to agree with you there. Deliciously eccentric, many layered...one sort of gets the impression that he was not of us...if you know what I mean...superb characterization is always the hallmark of works that linger on through the generations.

Dear Poirot,

I'd like to add - Simon Templer - aka - "The Saint,"
to my list. With the hope that I can also add TV
detectives such as, "The Avengers," (Emma Peel -
in her leather outfits), "Perry Mason,"
"Magnum, P.I.", "Inspector Morse," "Mid-Somer Murders,"
"Murder She Wrote," "Criminal Minds.," and "CSI."

Loved all of them, because they're so entertaining.

Oh well if we're adding TV show characters one can hardly go past Frost.

Btw: Bit of trivia Poirot; Joan Hickson was Agatha's favourite too and she plays a part in Murder She Said (Rutherford as Marple). She's the cranky household help.

I much preferred Rutherford because she is a bit plump, pink, fluffy and eccentric which seemed to me to be much more in keeping with the written character than thin little Hickson. As a child I first saw Murder at the Gallop and later read the novels. Margaret Rutherford was in my mind's eye as I read and just gives an inimitable portrayal of the character.

I might also find her more convincing because of her own mysterious and grief ridden life. Her father was put into an asylum for the criminally insane when he had a breakdown on his honeymoon; and then murdered his own father after his release. He and his wife (Margaret's mother) then moved to India.

Her mother died (under suspicious circumstances or at least there are vague reports (suicide by hanging; supposedly); in Africa when Margaret was a little child of about 5. Her father then returned to England and ended up in Broadmoor again. She was raised by an aunt and went to acting late in life. The Mr. Stringer in the movies was her husband in real life (Stringer Davis) and he was gay. He had a lifelong crush or perhaps more with Sir John Gielgud. Margaret knew about his homosexuality but they had a companionable relationship and stayed married for a long time.

They later took guardianship of a young man who had a sex change op. and married a much younger man. She wrote a book I think - can't recall her name and too lazy (and busy procrastinating here when I should be working) to look it up.

Margaret was smart and compassionate and eccentric in a real life saturated with mystery and drama; and that seems to me to characterize Jane Marple.