The finale of The Detectorists on the Detectorists. All four guests are together for the first time: Emma (@emloveoldstuff), Ellie (@miss_detectorist, Miss Detectorist on YouTube), and Ross (@detectorosst) join host Katie to review the 2022 feature-length special of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook, and to reflect on the whole series.
The special opens with Andy and Lance in a field tossing a ceramic cup between them, neither wanting to keep it. By the end of the episode, they think it might be a reliquary connected to the Last Supper. Ross notes that it felt less like a film that tried to be a TV show and more like a long episode, which is exactly what it needed to be. The drone shots give it a quality of being watched from above, in keeping with the eerie presences that have run through all three series. Art and Paul, welcomed into the gang so warmly at the end of series three, double-cross everyone over the gold from the nest. Lance goes full Gollum, hides the coins from Andy, and it takes Tony to suggest the obvious solution. By the final scene, Andy and Lance are a team again, sharing a quiet look that says everything. The special also carries real weight: the house that Becky and Andy worked so hard to win at auction has burned down, and Veronica is gone. Diana Rigg had died in 2020, and Rachel Stirling, who plays Becky and was Rigg's daughter in real life, is understood to have brought the storyline to Mackenzie Crook herself.
The gang then run through their overall thoughts on the series, covering what made the Detectorists feel authentic to real detecting life: the range of actual machines, the correct techniques, the Searcher magazine on the bedside table, the permissions culture, the lunch break conversations. Ellie notes that she first watched it as a non-detectorist for the British countryside and the characters, and that watching it again as someone who swings a coil revealed a whole second layer she had missed entirely.
The episode closes with a twenty-question pub quiz on the whole series, which dear listener can play along with at home. Questions cover the DMDC logo, Art's 1978 Orado, the number of pints of strong European lager Becky pours over Sophie, Lance's lottery winnings, the name written on Andy's hard hat, and what Sheila orders at band night. Ross disputes this result on grounds that have not been fully articulated lol.
Find Emma at @emloveoldstuff on Instagram, Ellie at @miss_detectorist on Instagram and at Miss Detectorist on YouTube, and Ross at @detectorosst on Instagram. For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms. Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.
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