Strike – The Cuckoo’s Calling episode 1: Why should you watch?

Today is going to prove to be a quite exceptional one for British TV. Strike – The Cuckoo’s Calling is premiering … and so is Victoria. For the first time in really a rather long stretch of time, you’ve got two British dramas airing against each other. Last year, the Jenna Coleman series is airing against Poldark and Aidan Turner’s massive following. This year, the Queen faces off against the Queen of modern British writing in J.K. Rowling … though Robert Galbraith is the name she would prefer you use.

One of the most interesting things about Strike is that Rowling originally used the pen name of Galbraith in order to draw less attention to her crime books because they were written by her; they received a great deal of critical acclaim along before anyone realized that she was the wordsmith behind them. The Cuckoo’s Calling is a three-part series that will give her work a TV edge, and we’re certainly curious to see if this becomes more notable or successful than the TV version of The Casual Vacancy. While we didn’t necessarily think that the series version was terrible, it also fell of the radar soon after it aired.

If you enjoy a good London-set crime series, there is a good bit to enjoy from this series. For the sake of this article, our goal is to set up the premiere episode. We do think that the episode description below, courtesy of the BBC, should serve a great purpose in giving you a sense of what’s going to be coming at the forefront of tonight’s premiere:

“Supermodel Lula Landry falls to her death from a Mayfair balcony. The police conclude that she committed suicide. Robin Ellacott, a newly engaged 20-something temp from Yorkshire, is sent to the Denmark Street offices of private investigator Cormoran Strike. It is an awkward first meeting. Then John Bristow arrives. He believes that his adopted sister Lula was murdered and the police have overlooked key evidence. Penniless, and effectively homeless after separating from his girlfriend, Strike takes the case.”

Cormoran Strike is to be your leading man in this series, and eventually you will also see Holliday Grainger as Robin, his assistant who eventually becomes so much more important to the story. There’s an old-school quality to the series, as it may remind you of so many other investigative series of years past. There is part of that soul here, though also encased in a modern-day sensibility where you will see themes that are reflective of where we are as a world in 2017. We’re hoping that the show proves to be every bit as fascinating as we think it appears to be on the surface.

What do you want to see on Strike – The Cuckoo’s Calling, whether you be a fan of the books or someone planning to watch without much prior knowledge? Share in the comments below, and stay tuned for more later at the link here. (Photo: BBC.)

Also, watch a brief trailer for the show below.