As the summer sun casts long shadows over London’s labyrinthine auction houses and fog-draped galleries, Acorn TV unfurls a captivating new tapestry of intrigue with the premiere of Art Detectives on Monday, June 9, 2025, in the US and Canada. This six-episode gem, starring and executive produced by the magnetic Stephen Moyer—forever etched in fans’ minds as the brooding vampire Bill Compton from True Blood and the suave Teddy Bass in Sexy Beast—thrusts viewers into the opulent yet treacherous realm of art and antiques. At its heart beats the Heritage Crime Unit, a niche Metropolitan Police squad where aesthetics collide with autopsy reports, and every brushstroke could conceal a body count. Leading the charge is DI Mick Palmer (Moyer), an art-obsessed sleuth whose encyclopedic knowledge of Old Masters and street graffiti rivals his unerring instinct for foul play, partnered with the no-nonsense DC Shazia Malik (Nina Singh), whose street-smart grit grounds their cerebral pursuits. From Viking gold heists that unearth ancient curses to a forged Vermeer that unravels a web of aristocratic deceit, Art Detectives promises a heady cocktail of suspense, scholarly seduction, and the shadowy underbelly of cultural heritage—a procedural twist where the crime scene is often a canvas, and the clues hide in plain sight.

In an age where detective dramas flood the airwaves with gritty forensics and psychological cat-and-mouse games, Art Detectives carves a niche as elegant and elusive as a lost Caravaggio. The series, penned by a trio of sharp talents—Dan Gaster, Will Ing, and Paul Powell, with episodes three and four helmed by Emma Goodwin and Kitty Percy respectively—eschews the rain-slicked alleys of generic cop shows for the polished corridors of Sotheby’s and the dusty attics of country estates. Directed with a keen eye for composition by Jennie Paddon and Declan O’Dwyer, it unfolds across Belfast’s brooding landscapes and Northern Ireland’s verdant countryside, standing in for a London alive with the ghosts of empires past. Each installment delivers a self-contained enigma laced with the season’s connective tissue: Mick’s fraught reconciliation with his father, the infamous forger Mick Sr. (Larry Lamb), whose shadow looms like a poorly restored fresco, threatening to crack the unit’s fragile alliances. Shazia, navigating the dual pressures of her detective duties and cultural expectations from her British-Asian family, adds layers of contemporary resonance, her banter with Mick a lifeline amid the escalating perils.

The pilot episode sets the tone with operatic flair: a billionaire collector plummets from his penthouse balcony mid-auction for a rare Chinese vase, its porcelain shards mingling with blood on the marble floor. Was it a slip in the heat of bidding, or a deliberate push fueled by a disputed provenance? Mick, ever the aesthete, pores over the vase’s intricate blue-and-white patterns—echoes of Ming dynasty opulence—while Shazia canvasses suspects from rival dealers to scorned heirs, uncovering a smuggling ring that spans Shanghai to Shoreditch. As the duo deciphers cryptic auction catalogs and consults with eccentric experts—a flamboyant restorer with a penchant for absinthe, a reclusive curator hoarding secrets in a Bloomsbury basement—the investigation blooms into a meditation on value. What makes an object priceless: its age, its authenticity, or the lives it destroys in pursuit? Moyer’s Mick navigates this philosophical minefield with a disarming blend of geeky enthusiasm and steely resolve, his velvet-voiced interrogations turning suspect sketches into confessions. “Art isn’t just paint on canvas,” he muses in a dimly lit evidence room, fingers tracing a digital scan of the vase. “It’s stories stolen, secrets sold, and sometimes, sins sealed in silence.”

This fusion of mystery and the mesmerizing world of high-value art elevates Art Detectives beyond procedural boilerplate, transforming each case into a portal to history’s hidden vaults. Episode two plunges into medieval mayhem: a museum curator is found garroted with a chain from a 12th-century illuminated manuscript, its gold-leaf pages depicting Viking raids now stained with fresh ink—blood. Mick’s eyes light up like a child’s at Christmas as he decodes the codex’s runes, linking the murder to a black-market trade in looted antiquities from York’s Viking heritage sites. Shazia, rolling her eyes at his “nerd boner” for Norse lore, grounds the chase with pragmatic pursuits: tailing a tattooed antiquities fence through Belfast’s rainy docks, dodging fists in a warehouse brawl over a hoard of Viking gold torcs. Their dynamic—a chalk-and-cheese partnership where Mick’s flights of fancy are reined in by Shazia’s unyielding logic—pulses with the series’ core suspense: not just whodunit, but how the glittering allure of art exposes the basest human frailties. Greed manifests in a forger’s meticulous mimicry, obsession in a collector’s feverish gaze upon a Banksy stencil that vanishes mid-graffiti tour, lust in the tangled affairs of heirs squabbling over Titanic-retrieved heirlooms—silverware etched with the ghosts of that fateful night.

Moyer’s immersion as both star and executive producer infuses the series with an intimate authenticity, his fingerprints evident in every frame from script tweaks to casting choices. Post-True Blood, where he spent seven seasons embodying eternal longing and liquid silver, Moyer has gravitated toward roles that peel back layers of the enigmatic male— the calculating gangster in Sexy Beast, the tormented patriarch in PBS’s The Forsyte Saga reboot. Yet Mick Palmer marks a delightful pivot: a rumpled romantic whose tweed jackets and wire-rimmed specs conceal a heart as layered as a Renaissance altarpiece. “I fell for this world hook, line, and sinker,” Moyer shared in a recent profile, his Essex lilt belying the character’s Oxford polish. As producer, he championed the unit’s “artfully astute” ethos, insisting on real experts as consultants—from provenance specialists at the British Museum to forensic art analysts—to ensure the mysteries rang true. His chemistry with Singh, a rising force from Virdee and The Lazarus Project, crackles with platonic fire: Shazia’s sardonic quips (“Another dead bloke because of a doodle? Prioritize, Palmer”) offset Mick’s earnest dives into art trivia, creating a buddy-cop vibe that’s equal parts Sherlock cerebration and Endeavour elegance. Supporting turns add luster: Sarah Alexander as the unit’s wry forensic pathologist, her scalpel-sharp wit dissecting bodies and alibis alike; Larry Lamb as Mick Sr., a silver-tongued scoundrel whose paternal barbs cut deeper than any forgery; and guest spots from the likes of a haughty auctioneer (played by a Downton Abbey alum) and a punkish street artist channeling Banksy’s elusiveness.

Filmed entirely in Northern Ireland—a budgetary boon and visual feast—the production captures the art world’s dual soul: the grandeur of Georgian townhouses doubling as galleries, the grit of shipyards evoking illicit trades. Cinematographer Timmy White, veteran of The Dig and Dalgliesh, bathes scenes in a palette of gilded golds and moody umbers, close-ups lingering on brushwork like lovers’ caresses or the glint of a murder weapon. The score, a subtle weave of harpsichord flourishes and pulsing percussion, mirrors the rhythm: stately for scholarly sleuthing, frantic for foot chases through crowded vernissages. At six episodes, it’s a taut sprint—two premiere nights dropping the opener and sophomore, then weekly reveals—leaving room for cliffhangers like the Vermeer forgery in episode five, where a canvas mimicking the Dutch master’s pearl-eared muse hides a cipher leading to a poisoned palette. Critics, catching early screenings, rave about its “cozy yet cunning” appeal: Paste Magazine dubs Moyer “an incredibly charming nerd,” while Collider hails it as “one of the best British mysteries on Acorn TV in recent years,” praising the wardrobe’s posh panache—velvet jackets and twill waistcoats that outshine even The Gentlemen’s sartorial swagger.

What truly distinguishes Art Detectives is its reverent yet ruthless dissection of art’s intoxicating peril, where beauty begets brutality. In a market valued at $65 billion annually, where a single stroke can eclipse fortunes, the series unmasks the human cost: obsessive collectors driven to matricide over a contested Constable, vengeful heirs torching estates to claim insurance on “irreplaceable” icons, smugglers garroting guardians of cultural patrimony. Mick’s personal arc amplifies this—his father’s legacy of masterful fakes forces a reckoning with inheritance, literal and figurative, as Shazia grapples with impostor syndrome in a field dominated by old boys’ clubs. It’s a narrative that educates slyly: viewers emerge versed in Vermeer’s light tricks, Viking torc metallurgy, and Titanic salvage lore, all while pondering deeper truths. Art, the show posits, is the ultimate detective—revealing forgeries in pigment analysis, motives in provenance gaps, souls in the spaces between lines. Suspense builds not through bombast but nuance: a whispered provenance rumor snowballing into a raid, a Banksy shredder’s echo in a suspect’s alibi. In Mick’s words, delivered over a pint in a rain-lashed pub, “Every masterpiece has its monster. Our job? Connect the dots before the frame falls.”

For those ensnared by Art Detectives‘ siren call, the wait for June 9 needn’t be barren. MHz Choice’s The Art of Crime, a French import that’s captivated stateside audiences since its 2017 debut, offers a delectable companion: the odd-couple pairing of gruff Captain Antoine Verlay (Nicolas Jimenez) and agoraphobic art historian Florence Chassagne (Ludivine Sagnier), whose Parisian probes into Louvre heists and Renaissance rip-offs blend Monk-esque quirks with Da Vinci Code dazzle. Dubbed in English for seamless binging, its seven seasons (with more brewing) deliver frothy forgeries and fatal frescoes, proving Gallic flair for artful whodunits. Across the Channel, Peacock’s Fake or Fortune? grounds the fantasy in fact: since 2011, Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould have chased authenticity across BBC archives, unmasking myths around lost Lowrys and contested Cézannes with X-ray scans and expert testimonies. Its investigative rigor—traveling from dusty attics to international auctions—mirrors Art Detectives‘ scholarly sleuthing, though sans the corpses, offering a palate cleanser of pure provenance passion. Both series underscore the genre’s timeless draw: in art’s gilded labyrinth, truth is the rarest treasure, and deception the deadliest stroke.

As Art Detectives readies its bow, it arrives not merely as Acorn TV’s latest procedural polish but as a love letter to the intersections of creation and crime—where a detective’s badge gleams alongside a magnifying glass over masterpieces. Moyer’s Mick Palmer isn’t just solving murders; he’s resurrecting histories, one clue at a time, reminding us that behind every frame lurks a story worth killing for. Tune in come June 9, and let the brushstrokes bleed into the blue. In the gallery of great mysteries, this one’s a genuine original.