Watching television is my job, but it is also sometimes a recreation. The first is a solitary occupation, the second mostly shared with the person I live with, which makes it a matter of shared taste and promoting domestic harmony. Among the shows we're most likely to watch are mysteries, but not just anything with a murder. We tend to avoid anything described as "dark" or "gritty" in favor of what are often called "cozy mysteries."
The heroes are typically amateur or private detectives, possibly quirky, often women, sometimes a couple; they aren't likely to suffer the afflictions common to the hard-boiled shamus — depression, rage, alcoholism, untreated trauma. Cozy mysteries give you the benefits of more uncomfortable mysteries — the suspense, the puzzles — without the gore, the sensationalism, the foregrounded perversity. The stories often are set in small towns, in rural or far-flung settings, satisfying as a bonus the urge to travel. (Or they are period pieces, satisfying the urge to time travel.) Even when not outright comedies, they will have a comic streak, and though they involve people killing people, sometimes for the saddest reasons, they will not leave you in a funk, despairing over the human condition. Romance is often on the cards. Murder is almost beside the point.
The company may be more important than the plot; some of these shows can get pretty obvious or ridiculous, which may not be inseparable from their charm. That one may find oneself talking back to the screen, pointing out whatever the characters are slow to understand, is just part of the game. As with any mystery, there's an interactive, play-along aspect, as one seeks to solve the murder before the murderer is announced. (My own method is to accuse every character of being the killer, and so I am never wrong.) Naming the killer before the detective(s) often has more to do with one's familiarity with the genre than with any clues that might have been offered.
