Detecting Loss in Detectorists: A British comedy observed

#083.  In this episode I'm looking at one of our favourite TV programmes ever; the British comedy, Detectorists.

Welcome to The Silent Why, a podcast exploring every type of loss and grief and all the places we find them.

I'm Claire Sandys and every now and then, among our regular episodes (exploring 101 types of loss) I like to share another love of mine - fictional storytelling, particularly involving grief and loss.  This means occasionally I dissect specific programmes, books or stories that handle grief or loss in a particular way and share my musings with you.

The programme I'm looking at today is a comedy that launched in 2014 on BBC Four - Detectorists, and I'm looking at the Season 2 finale, Episode 6 - You are gold!

So join me as I detect loss in Detectorists and how Mackenzie Crook handled a subject very close to my heart (and my podcast).

SPOILER ALERT: This episode does contain spoilers from 7 mins 15 secs onwards, basically after my husband's impromptu piano rendition of the theme tune (a regular feature that's always worth hearing!).

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgN7z0SD8v8&ab_channel=SeriesFest

Theme tune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q58Gm18-IMY

Where to watch Detectorists (in UK):
iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b06l51nr/detectorists
Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80065658

Previous Silent Why episodes exploring loss on TV:

Grief in Ghosts: https://www.thesilentwhy.com/podcast/episode/7d0da791/grief-in-ghosts-the-bbc-sitcom-observed

Loss in Ted Lasso: https://www.thesilentwhy.com/podcast/episode/799203f6/loss-in-ted-lasso-a-sports-comedy-observed

Transcript

Claire Sandys:
Welcome to The Silent Why podcast, and back to another one of my TV and film episodes where I look at how loss and grief are handled through fictional characters, story telling, script writing, directing and screenplays.

I'm Claire Sandys, host of The Silent Why podcast (which is exploring 101 different types of loss) and a very keen (albeit yet to be known for it) storyteller and fiction writer. One of my great admirations in life is writing that inspires and evokes emotion, I don’t mean the literary kind that wins awards and no one fully understands but won’t admit to, I mean books, scripts and stories that relay moments we can empathise with - that make you laugh, cry, fume or sigh. 

And just a reminder you can listen to all these types of episodes up until you hear the piano music theme tune without any spoilers, but after the piano (provided by Chris Sandys - more about that later) it’s chock full of spoilers for this show. 

So far I’ve looked at how the BBC sitcom Ghosts and the comedy-drama Ted Lasso have handled loss (I’ll put links in the show notes to those episodes) and now I’m moving onto one of my husband and I’s favourite British comedies. In fact if I was ever tempted to start another podcast, it would be exploring each episode of this program, because this is a world of scripts and acting I could happily live in for years… and the name of this very wonderful comedy? Detectorists.

I’ve heard (and used the words myself) this comedy described as ‘a big warm hug’, and for me that sums it up perfectly. It’s a world that makes me feel safe, happy and.. I cannot tell you how many laugh out loud moments it’s provided for me and Chris.

So, for those newbies to this comedy, Detectorists is described on the BBC website as a “Comedy series about two friends who go in search of their hearts' desire with a couple of metal detectors.” And it’s described on IMDB (along with its 8.6 rating) as “The lives of two eccentric metal detectorists, who spend their days plodding along ploughed tracks and open fields, hoping to disturb the tedium by unearthing the fortune of a lifetime.” 

Now, no short description like this is really going to give it justice, but basically, it’s about two main characters who are metal detectors. ;) 

(That's an in joke for the fans). Andy Stone played by Mackenzie Crook (originally known as Gareth from The Office (the UK’s Dwight Shrute) and Lance Stater played by the British treasure that is Toby Jones (or as my much younger friend once described him - oh yes, that bad guy off Sherlock - shocking!). 

Mackenzie Crook actually created, wrote and directed this comedy (through his production company - Treasure Trove Productions) - and I hope he has all the love and pride for it that it deserves, because to have something like this come out of your brain and come together so beautifully really deserves the creator to sit back and see a job well done. I actually had a very cringy dream a while ago that I met Mackenzie and spent the time asking him if he really knew how special this was and if I could die having written a TV programme it would be this one! And that’s about as exciting as my dreams get!

The beauty and attention to detail of this comedy tell me that there are many small details I’ve not spotted yet, but one example is the main character’s initial and surname are ‘A Stone’. And his best friend has the surname Stater, which a listener, via Instagram, has informed me is an ancient Greek gold or silver coin. Coincidence?! Of course not.

Anyway this whole comedy revolves around Andy and Lance and their beautiful, very organic and realistic friendship (the old married couple type) plus their love of metal detecting. It’s filmed in Suffolk (the land of the Saxons, as Andy describes it in season 1, episode 1), but based in the fictional small town of Danebury in northern Essex. Suffolk is where I grew up and where most of my family still are, a very flat and beautiful part of England, for those overseas it’s basically in the big bump on the lower right of the UK. 

The characters beyond this central friendship - involve Andy’s partner Becky, and the fabulous misfit crew of the local Danbury Metal Detecting Club (the DMDC) that Andy and Lance belong to (and you might occasionally see Chris on social media in a t-shirt with this stamped on the front). Plus, their rival Metal Detectorists in the form of a couple of men that look like Simon and Garfunkel (one of which is played by the brilliant Simon Farnaby, who for those of you that tuned into Ghosts after my episode will know as - Julian).

I’ll give a brief overview of the cast in a bit, but just know they are all simply wonderful and the acting is superb throughout. The whole show, the settings, locations, scenery, music, sounds, wardrobe, is packed with small, very carefully written and directed details that are what make it so beautiful. I feel like there is so much to be found and discovered, and so much to be missed, just like the nature of metal detecting itself. 

I’d be very interested to see how this program has been received overseas because I can’t work out if this is filled with British humour, or if it’s a universal humour. Let me know.

Anyway, I did consider looking at this comedy as a whole for this episode, after all, it’s about finding things that are lost, so it has loss all over it, but on re-watching all three seasons recently there was one episode in particular that stood out to me - so I’ve decided to focus on that.

There have been 3 Seasons of 6 episodes all 30 minutes long. The first season was released in 2014, the second in 2015 with a Christmas Special thrown in, the third in 2017 and then an extremely exciting and unexpected thing happened late last year - they released a Christmas special in 2022 that was over an hour long! 

The episode I’ve decided to focus on is Season 2, Episode 6 - called ‘You are Gold!’ 

It’s the last episode of Season 2, before the Christmas Special was released a few weeks after it, and it’s got some of our favourite moments ever in it. Although shout-out to Season 3 Episode 6 finale which contains one of my favourite, laughing through tears moments, when Andy and Becky are in the auction house.

For those who heard the last TV analysis episodes I did, you’ll know that to ease us into the spoiler section there’s a very special bit of piano playing. This piano playing is basically me getting my reluctantly musical husband to sit at our piano and play the theme tune from memory/by ear. I’ve made it a regular thing, so he has to do it now, and every time it makes me laugh - which is something we should always encourage in each other anyway, so he has no choice but to continue it. 

The music is your queue if you don’t want to hear spoilers, because after it this episode will be littered with spoilers for this episode and the program as a whole. So if you ever intend on watching this program or episodes and you’d rather not know what happens, please go watch it all first, and then return (this would be me and sort of what I want to recommend because it’s well worth it), but if you’ve already seen it or you’re not fussed about knowing what happens in something, or you’re never going to watch it, then come with me, because I will definitely make this accessible to anyone listening, you don’t have to have seen the program to appreciate this gorgeous British writing.

So come with me as I walk you through what I love about how Mackenzie Crook handled loss in Detectorists Series 2 Episode 6 - You are Gold! 

[THEME TUNE PLAYED ON PIANO BY HUSBAND BY EAR WITH NO MUSIC]

Ha! I love that so much, and I love him even more for letting me put that out there because it is not representative of his true skills if he had any time to practise or any music in front of him!

So a very quick rundown of the main characters for you newbs. There’s 15 main, regular characters throughout all the seasons (don’t worry I’m going through them all in detail, you know me better than that).

One of the main characters in this is actually the Suffolk countryside itself, each scene is woven between shots and sounds of nature and the countryside, which is probably why this program feels like such a relaxing and calming watch.

We have Andy Stone - played by Mackenzie Crook himself, a rough diamond, lives with his partner Becky who’s a primary school teacher. Andy is fascinated by archeology and eventually qualifies in it but can’t seem to find a job that brings him the satisfaction he’s after, so he largely does temp work. He’s a very keen metal detectorist, not to be confused with what they hold, which are metal detectors. The brilliant thing about his cleaning and maintenance temp work, is that all the temp work he does involves waving/moving something on the end of a stick or handle - like a metal detector, and this is the first nod towards the attention to detail this program provides. These jobs include; weed spraying grass verges (not that he puts the weed killer in, he’s too pro-nature for that, so he just waters them instead), grass cutting with a strimmer, line painting on a sports field, measuring with one of those rolly wheels on a stick, all outdoors, all looking down. He’s very loveable, adores the outdoors, is passionate about what he does in a way that draws us into his world too, but also not that reliable, a little foolish in his decisions and prone to lying to his partner Becky. He's a perfect example of how to write a character the audience can't help but love, despite the flaws. 

Becky is a strong woman with a lot of patience for Andy but even she struggles with his lack of commitment to finding a job and his desire to spend all day outdoors. She’s a teacher who works hard to support them but is increasingly fed up with her job. As the show progresses they get pregnant and have a son, called Stan. 

Lance Stater - Andy’s best friend, played by the wonderful Toby Jones. Lance is divorced, lives alone, down the road from his ex-wife, who he’s trying to win back from a Pizza Hut manager. Another example of details easily missed, Lance's ex is called Mags, and magpies feature heavily in one of the seasons, for stealing shiny things, and when Mags discovers Lance has money from a lottery win she returns like a magpie to try and steal it. Until she’s shooed away but a new female in the nest!

Outside of these characters we have the DMDC members (Danbury Metal Detecting Club), a wonderful bunch of characters that I’ll describe as we come across them in the episode. There’s also the rival metal detectorists, Andy and Lance’s nemeses: the Antiquisearchers, also known later as the DirtSharks and then Terra Firma, and this is where the Simon and Garfunkel jokes enter - because they look like them. 

This episode starts, as it often does, with the simple sound of birds, a light breeze over the green Suffolk countryside and Lance and Andy in a field with their detectors. In this first scene we see Andy with his baby son, Stan, strapped to his front as he chats techy detector stuff with Lance, who examines a fruity ring pull that may or may not be Lilt. Instantly you see how seriously they take their hobby and I already can't get enough. Then we move into the gorgeous theme tune written and performed for the show by Johnny Flynn (link in show notes) including lyrics written for the show like: ‘Will you search through the lonely earth for me? Climb through the briar and bramble. I'll be your treasure, I felt the touch of the kings and the breath of the wind, I knew the call of all the song birds, They sang all the wrong words, I'm waiting for you, I’m waiting for you.’

And the whole program has this undertone of something wonderful waiting for them or you to find. And that’s why we watch, to see what wonderful things they will unearth, not just under the soil, but above it too, in their relationships, the countryside and themselves. And the whole time, you want nothing but good things for these guys, and as with all well crafted character arcs, every character is searching for something different.

In this episode Andy has not told Becky about a job he was offered in Africa doing archeology (something he loves and somewhere they’ve always said they wanted to go) and she finds the offer letter and gets very angry with him - or as he says ‘hell has no fury like…Becky’ - so they’re going through a few difficulties. 

Meanwhile, as they always do, Andy and Lance discuss their relationships, the difference between not being ambitious and not stagnating, feedback on the latest episode of University Challenge and detecting stuff. They do this either walking, detecting or sitting in a field with a thermos. And when baby Stan arrives on the scene he goes along for the ride. There’s a beautiful simplicity to their time excavating life and other humans, but we also empathise with them as they explore the complexities of relationships and communication. 

In the background we also have a story arc about a German guy who turns up looking for a lost plane, the group thought they were helping him, especially the newest member, Sophie,  but he turns out to be a Nighthawk - the dark side of metal detecting - and deceives them all, but I’m not going to be focusing on that. 

Andy and Becky aren’t really talking much, Andy’s annoyed that Becky read the job offer letter, Becky’s annoyed Andy didn’t tell her about it. They meet in the house when he gets back from detecting and Becky comes down the stairs and Andy tells her she shouldn’t have read the letter, to which she replies: 

Becky: ‘Don’t make me lose my temper. Not when I’m dressed as a Victorian Flower Seller.’

Andy: ‘Ok. Why are you dressed as a Victorian Flower Seller?’

Becky: ‘It’s the school fete tomorrow, I told you. Dickens themed.’

She goes off to stay at her mums for the night saying they’ll talk another time.

Then we find ourselves in a pub garden and I get shivers just thinking about this scene. It’s one of the reasons I chose this episode. It’s a classic British day, bit cloudy, the pub looks like an old house with lots of roofs, and around a wooden, circular picnic table with the built-in benches sits Andy and Lance, as Terry and Sheila approach to join them. 

Now I need to just tell you about Terry and Sheila. They’re married, Terry runs the DMDC. They are the sweetest couple, and like the rest of the DMDC members we know very little about their wider family situations. So apart from Stan and Lance’s older daughter that appears on the scene at some point none of them seem to be parents or mention children, and apart from relationships we see on screen there doesn’t seem to be any other married members either. And Terry and Sheila are… how do I describe them? Well, one of the aspects I love most is that they are fully accepting of each other. Sheila has a soft, sing-songy voice, can be found doing anything from quietly dancing to windchimes and psychically announcing who’s coming to the door, to suggesting a naked calendar, or making lemonade that, well, needs more sugar. She is one of those women who seems content, interested in others and impossible to imagine angry. Terry is passionate about his detecting club, endlessly trying to raise funds and fully accepts his wife for exactly who she is without ever doing anything but encouraging and supporting her. The previous episode has one of the best scenes when it comes to Sheila’s lemonade (had us laughing for years since!) but also an amazing line from Terry that sums up their marriage. In that scene the DMDC are all at Terry’s house and they’re planning a stake-out to see if there is a nighthawk (bad metal detectorist) on the land they’re detecting at night, illegally. 

Terry: ‘There are three ways into that field, you’re going to have to guard all three.’

Russell: ‘Where will you be?’

Terry: ‘Sheila and I have got a prior engagement.’

Lance: ‘What! Where you going?’

Terry: ‘Lindyhop.’

Louise: ‘Can’t you forgo the Lindyhop?!’

Terry: ‘Sheila’s been looking forward to the Lindyhop.’

Lance: ‘So, dance is more important than detecting?’

Terry: ‘No. But Sheila is.’

And they all fall silent.

So this is the couple that join Andy and Lance in the pub garden. At first they discuss an upcoming metal detecting rally that’s happening in this episode to examine a large area of land that will soon be lost to solar panels. The rally involves the whole DMDC going out and detecting together, with other clubs, to cover a greater area quickly, usually they all have their own spots they detect on, mostly in friendship pairs. After this Terry goes into the pub to get drinks and Andy offers to go with him saying ‘extra pair of hands’ which for some reason makes Sheila chuckle. 

So Lance (Toby Jones) and Sheila (Sophie Thomson) are left at the table and Sheila asks Lance if they’ll get to meet his daughter at the rally. Lance has only recently met a daughter he had about 20 years ago, he did know she existed and had bought presents for every Christmas and birthday but had no contact until recently. Then on deciding to give her all these presents Lance tells Sheila that he’s basically scared her off and thinks he’s mucked it all up. 

Now I can’t do the next bit of this conversation justice by just describing it, you need to hear it, so I’m going to play it to you, and if you can I’d recommend watching the scene on BBC iPlayer or somewhere else, I think it’s on Netflix actually, because it’s beautifully acted by both of them, but especially Sophie Thompson. 

So here it is, Sheila and Lance in the pub garden, as Sheila asks Lance about his daughter finding him recently after all these years… 

Sheila: ‘Wasn’t she the one that found you? Why would she then just run away?’

Lance: ‘Probably thought I was a nutter.’

Sheila: ‘Rubbish. Probably came on a bit strong, but what you’ve got going for you now is that she’s met you, Lance. And you’re lovely. So she’s bound to come back when she’s ready.’

Lance: ‘Thanks Sheila. I’ll let her decide. Never realised how often I’d thought about her over the last 20 years.’

Sheila: ‘I know. Imagining every day what they might be doing now. Ha ha. What they would look like.’ 

Lance: ‘Yeah, exactly.’ 

Sheila: ‘I know. Ha ha.’ 

After her last words Sheila smiles, with eyes full of tears, closes her eyes, glances to the sky, clutches both hands in front of her as she tries not to cry, and that soft piano tune plays. No one notices, Lance is oblivious and finishes his pint, and this very poignant, private glimpse into pain that Sheila is carrying, is only shared with us as the audience, and only then if you want to find it really. We don’t know what loss from her own life Sheila is drawing from to empathise with Lance. Did she lose a baby? A child? Was there a death? A miscarriage? An abortion? A child gone into care or taken away? But with so few words about it, there is so much hurt and grief conveyed, and so much missed. It’s beautiful, heart-breaking, and not ever mentioned or picked up on again, which is fitting for the program and the interactions they have, but for that split second we see through a window into the pain that Sheila is carrying, and we’re all the more in love with how wonderful she is to those around her. It’s also a great reminder that no matter what we’re going through, there may be others around us silently carrying a similar pain. It’s a powerful, wonderfully executed scene that always has me welling up.  

Straight after that we move to a shot of Lance in his flat later on that evening, leaving lots of messages for his daughter, telling her that now he’s met her, he doesn’t want to lose her, and we see the pain in one character’s life, serving to help another do all they can to avoid a similar experience. 

Then we see the rally starting and Terry telling everyone to get their ‘coils to the soil’ and that he hopes by the end of the day they’ll all have danced the ‘gold dance’ (if they find gold they have to do a dance - it’s a detectorist thing). 

So everyone starts detecting. 

We also see the culmination of a particularly funny ongoing storyline here. The DMDC members treat one of their own, Hugh, as if he’s a young adult, or child almost, and so the person he’s partnered with most, Russell, doesn’t ever buy him alcohol in the pub or even offer, just gets him a coke all the time, and the others often give him tips on detecting - like Terry does in this next scene, as if to remind us they all see him as the child of the group. 

So during this rally Hugh is in a hole pulling out parts of an old plane wreckage, because he loves that kind of thing and has requested to keep them, and Russell looks down on him in the hole and says:

Russel: ‘Where are you going to put it all?’

Hugh: ‘Open a museum eventually. If I can find the right venue. And funding.’

Russel: ‘The museum of sharp twisted metal?’

Hugh: ‘Aviation Archeology Museum.’

Russel: ‘Right.’

Hugh: ‘I’ll just put it in my garage now.’

Russel: Your mum and dad won’t mind?’

Hugh: ‘I don’t live with my mum and dad.’

Russel: Why not?’

Hugh: ‘Because I’m 32.’

Russel: You’re what?’

Hugh: I’m 32.’ 

Russel: Years of age?’

Hugh: Yeah.’

Russell: ‘So why have I been buying you pints of coke all this time?’

Hugh: ‘Cos you never ask me if I want anything different.’

Russell: ‘I mean why haven’t you been getting a round in every once in a while if you’re thirty-bloody-two?’

Hugh shrugs.

Russell: ‘Have you got a syndrome?’

Hugh: ‘What sort of syndrome?’

Russell: ‘I don’t know. One that makes you look young.’ 

Hugh: ‘No. Just look young.’

Russell: ‘32. I feel like I’ve been groomed.’ 

This exchange still makes Chris laugh as loud as I’ve ever heard him.

We also have an exchange where Lance is asking Sheila how many fleeces they’ve sold because they have a lot to get rid of, they find the nighthawk is back and Terry goes to deal with him. He’s no pushover, Terry. 

Also, Lance’s daughter turns up to see the rally and have her first go at detecting, and Lance explains that ‘Detectorists are usually solitary animals, it’s only at certain times of year they gather together in vast herds. It’s one of the wonders of the natural world,’ and promises to not buy any more presents, but does give her a detector to join the rally and introduces her to Andy - who has only found ‘canslaw’ so far - coleslaw but made of drinking cans, then as they walk away she calls Lance ‘dad’ for the first time, and another treasure that was lost, has been found. As Andy watches them walk we can kind of see he’s contemplating this family dynamic and what’s going on with his.

Before we leave the rally there’s a very sweet shot of Russel and Hugh watching the digger re-fill the hole where they were getting the plane wreckage from. There’s a sort of sadness about it as Hugh watches things are being put back to normal, and Russell looks at him, then just places a hand on his shoulder, like a father-figure might, which now that he knows he’s 32 and not under the alcohol drinking age, is a sweet gesture of still looking out for him none-the-less.  

Then we move to a shot of Andy collecting baby Stan from his mother-in-law’s and the actress that plays her (Diana Rigg, who some of you might remember from The Avengers in the 60s) is not just Becky’s mother in the program but also in real life. Sadly she died in 2020 before they filmed their 2022 Christmas special, but as you’d expect it’s handled beautifully in that episode. 

Anyway, Becky’ mum isn’t a huge fan of Andy but they do have some very sweet moments together and this is one of them. Through a series of simple questions and some wise words Becky’s mum helps Andy figure out what it is that he wants. She asks him as he turns to leave; ‘What are you going to do? About this Africa thing.’ and Andy admits he doesn’t know. Then she asks what he wants and he says it’s to protect his family, but he doesn’t know how to do that in Africa. His mother-in-law points out there are other ways to protect people than wrapping them in cotton wool. She adds that she doesn’t think Becky will go without him, like she’s threatening and says ‘She loves you. Don’t ask me why,. I’ve always thought you were a sad sack, but Becky’s seen something in you and she’s far cleverer than me.’ She tells him he’s a good dad, which Becky didn’t have and she needs him to look after Stanley, and that if he’s not going to follow Becky on her whims and adventures, then Andy’s just going to have to tame her. Andy replies: ‘I don’t want to tame her,’ and her mum says ‘Good. Cos I wouldn’t fancy your chances.’

Andy leaves with Stan in a car seat and walks down the road and then we hear this frantic conversation between him and Becky as he phones her from outside her school where they’re having the Victorian day (while he’s holding a very chilled Stan in a brimmed hat). Part way into the conversation Becky runs out of the school front doors, and they both move along different sides of the school railings towards the gate where they then stand and face each other. Here’s the start of the phonecall…

‘Becky, I’m outside the school, can you come out?’

‘Why can’t you come in?’

‘I don’t want to come in. I’m dressed in modern day clothes. Everyone will look at me.’

‘I’ve been thinking about Africa.’

No no.

‘I’ve decided…’

[full clip played]

I love this conversation, especially Becky’s black out tooth, but mainly that they’ve both done a complete 180 on their positions and are both saying the exact opposite of the other one, which seamlessly leads them to their decision for their future. It also highlights the value of a few important questions to help people sometimes work out what they want. 

Then as they often do, maybe always (I’d need to check that) we finish where we start - back in the fields with Andy and Lance and their detectors, just walking and chatting. Lance asking if Andy’s ready for Africa and telling him that he’s decided he is finally going to do it - he’s going to apply to be on Mastermind! Possibly with ‘British birds, not including seagulls’ as his chosen topic because he probably can’t do ‘The Life and Career of Linda Lusardi’ - Andy points out that’s creepy. 

They meet Sophie, one of the newer members of the DMDC, a young girl who’s got a history with them over the two series but I won’t go into that here.  She asks if they’ve found anything and they say no, and if Andy’s really going to Africa, and he says yes. She asks if he’ll email and he says ‘doubt it’, so they agree to meet back in a year to find out all about it. Sophie marks a cross on the ground in the soil with her foot and says ‘Right here. In exactly a year.’ And they say it’s a deal and start to head off to the pub. But Lance hangs back, and we hear the sound of horses in the distance, as in, back in history in the distance, he can hear it and he asks the others if they can, which they can’t. He looks at the cross that Sophie has drawn on the floor as he walks away but then decides he has to run back and detect it. He tells the others to wait and runs back, scans over it and gets a signal. Andy says ‘it’s junk, just leave it.’ But Lance takes his gear off and starts to dig. 

Big spoiler coming…

Now there’s something that we all know at this point from watching it, that you won’t if you haven’t. In the early scenes of some episodes or the credit scenes we have seen bits of history in this area and we know something precious fell into the ground right near the big stone that they’re stood by right now. The camera takes us down into the soil in the credits to see it as the words of the theme tune say ‘I’m waiting for you, I’m waiting for you’.

So Lance digs, and we wonder if this is the moment, the moment they will find it, the moment they get what they’ve been after for two series - will they find gold and do the gold dance? Lance says he has a feeling, and Sophie points out he always has a feeling, Lance says ‘when in doubt, dig it out.’ Andy hands him his small detector to put in the hole and says ‘Mate, it’s probably just another ring pull,’ and Lance says ‘What if it’s not just another ring pull?’ And they all peer into the hole. There’s beeping and Lance unwraps something in cloth, scrapes off the mud and reveals a late Saxon gold and jewelled aestel (I believe it’s the head of a pointer - anyway, it’s precious, colourful and gold!). The music theme kicks in, their eyes are all wide as saucers and then Lance screams and starts to dance as the camera sweeps away from them, and we see them all dancing, and Andy and Lance hug. 

It’s a feel-good ending like no other. Perfect. And I’ll leave ‘the curse of the gold’ situation for you to watch in the next episode - the 2015 Christmas special, when Andy pops back from Africa to catch up with the gang. 

And endings are what Detectorists do so well. If I had to pick another favourite episode it’s the final of season 3 - there’s a scene in that episode where Andy and Becky are bidding on a house they really want, and I think it’s safe to say, I can’t watch it without crying happy tears - though you’d need to see the whole programme to fully engage with the scene, so don't just go and watch that one.

There’s nothing I don’t love about this show and whereas so many other programmes recently have let me down with their subsequent seasons (I’m looking at you, Ted Lasso) - Detectorists nailed all their character arcs, plot and resolved those all important emotional beats.

I think this program has the love, care and attention to detail and character that every show should have. There’s an underrated simplicity to it (that’s incredibly hard to achieve with screenwriting and directing) that make it so beautiful, relatable and all cosy-like.

It takes the concept of things that were once treasured, but now lost, and redeems them. Whether it’s the people, the setting or the relationships. There is so much to be found in this program, every time I watch it I notice something new, and I know there are even more things to find - it’s a bit like the way a detectorist might look at an unexplored field - you just know there’s gonna be treasure if you look hard enough in the right places.

Thank you to those that wrote it, acted in it, directed it, produced it, and worked in any capacity to make it happen - it is a gift to the TV world. It was deserving of its Best Scripted Comedy BAFTA award but should have got so much more (just like Ghosts!). 

Thank you for joining me today and indulging me in this slight side project about loss, I could do an episode about four times longer, but hopefully you’ll watch it and enjoy it for yourselves. 

For more about The Silent Why and our mission to find hope through 101 different types of loss and grief, you know where to find me; the show notes or thesilentwhy.com.

I’m going to finish with the Detectorists blessing that Russel reads at the beginning of one of the rallies in the 2022 Christmas Special: 

‘Our farmer, who art named Kevin, furrowed be thy plain.

Viking for some, 

Saxon, Roman, 

Unearthed so it isn't hidden. 

Give us permission this day to tread

so we won't be trespassers, 

as trespassing leaves a bad taste among us, 

and lead us not into frustration, 

but deliver us medieval. 

Decline aluminium, whatever the weather. 

Amen.’