LINKIN HAZE - "NEW TRICKS" & "DETECTIVE MONTALBANO"

As a Crossoverist, I admire the script writer who can throw in a pop culture reference and trust his audience to understand it without ruining it with explanations. That's because I want to accept such references to being about the real person, place, or thing being mentioned and thus sharing the same world as the show in which it was mentioned.

That's why last night's episode of 'New Tricks' gave me a small yet global thrill. In her first case with UCOS, DCI Sasha Miller was looking into the murder of an Italian citizen of the UK in 1988. As she was talking with one of her suspects, Massimo Gentile, Massimo said: "I like you. I watch you... clever; works hard.... like Montalbano."

For the writer and the audience, this was meant as a reference to 'Detective Montalbano', the Sicilian police detective who orginated in BookWorld and now has his own series in Italy.

But for the Toobworld Dynamic, Massimo was referring to the actual detective whom he probably knew... or at the very least, read about his cases in an Italian newspaper....)

Happy Columbus Day!