Parents' Guide to Instinct

This not-too-violent murder mystery series is easy to watch, and in the same family as throwback shows like Murder, She Wrote and Hart to Hart. The victims (when we meet them, which we often don't before they're dead) are anonymous types: a drug-dealing club kid, a cheating couple, a con artist. No one cries over them, though we occasionally meet a bewildered family member. Criminal investigations are tidily wrapped up at the end of each episode, killers obligingly confess their crimes once confronted by cops, and Dylan is liable to make quips right there over a dead body: "We get to unravel the mystery -- figure out the rules of his game!" he says rather happily at the scene of one murder.

As you may have guessed, it's all pretty cheesy, but harmless enough, for a police procedural in the era of seamy, over-the-top ripped-from-the-headline detective shows. It's enlivened by the twinkly presence of Cumming, too, and brief appearances by well-loved stars like Naveen Andrews and Whoopi Goldberg, who show up as Dylan's ex-colleague from his (shadowy!) past, and his agent, respectively. Instinct may make you roll your eyes at times, but it won't make you wince -- it's the television equivalent of comfortingly warm weak tea, and it goes down just as easy.