Ranking Every Police/Crime QL from 2020 to early 2026
i was inspired by this post from @clairedaring! i saw the list and was like, wait, i've actually seen all of these! so then i came up with fun categories to rank them by 🤓
police: as far as i remember (it's been a minute!), there's not a lot of police presence in this one, although this was my introduction to great sapol as inspector m. i kept wishing he would get into a threesome with the two main guys but it just never happened 😔 4/10, i'm being generous in honor of great's smoldering gaze.
mystery: this was written by the one and only doctor sammon, so the storytelling of the mystery is top notch. at some points, i thought it veered a little bit into ridiculousness, then again, that's what we love about thai shows. 9/10
crime: a lot of crime! lots of different crimes! a beautiful buffet of crime! even the proposal after the happy ending was technically done in the form of a crime. one of the things shown as terrible crimes on the show has since been legalized in thailand, which makes it extra turbo fun. 10/10 for crime!
pacing: i find pacing to be quite important in crime dramas, and the pacing of this show was solid. i thought on the whole it was a bit longer than it needed to be, but still enjoyable throughout. 8/10
romance: since this whole post is ql focused, the romance of course has to play a central part in the evaluation. i would give this show a 7/10 for the romance: fun, hot, but ultimately didn't make me insane.
unhinged factor: i had almost finished writing this whole post when i realized i needed to include an unhinged factor into the rating, simply because some very good shows become unmemorable by not being sufficiently unhinged, while some shows with glaring flaws end up being lovable due to their unhinged choices. for manner of death, i'd put the unhinged factor at about a 9/10
police: oh there is POLICE in this one! all the main guys are police. police work is sexualized in a way that goes beyond copaganda and into straight up fetish territory. the show is in deep denial about this being the case. 6/10 for police, i would have rated it higher if they'd fetishized police work on purpose.
mystery: one of the big draws of the story was the whole soulmate mystery and figuring out what happened in the past lives. could they have made more out of it? honestly, yeah. but on the whole, the mystery was fun. 7/10
crime: honestly, i don't remember much about the crimes on this show, which is never a good sign. the main crime to me were the terrible costumes in the flashback scenes, they really got the one-dollarest rags they could find and put them on their poor actors. 2/10
pacing: ohhhhh the pacing was bad. it was incredibly bad. there was like an hour-long ad for tourist spots in thailand in one episode that didn't connect to the main plot at all. the soulmate plotline felt rushed and mismanaged, there was an obvious missing scene in between episodes 11 and 12, i could go on... -6/10
romance: this was billybabe's first outing and they did manage to blow us all away with their sensual chemistry, so i can't say it was bad. but the writing didn't actually make their love story memorable, even though two beings from different species falling in love and then being soulmates for all their lifetimes should be a romance for the ages! 5/10
police: a classic "good cop against the corrupt system" story, in which the good cop's own father was responsible for a lot of police violence. unfortunately, tul never ended up leaving the force, however, i think the show still made some good critiques of police violence and corruption. 8/10
mystery: here we have another story written by doctor sammon, and as such, the mystery was top notch. not only was uncovering who did it fun, but the emotional impact that act of discovering the truth had on tul was so devastatingly raw. 10/10
crime: the crime on this show was hot, sexy and so so so tragic. a tasty burrito full of moral quandaries and family trauma, also na naphat in his hottest role to date as the big bad. 12/10
pacing: solid. not much to be said about it. 8/10
romance: i thought the main romance was cute. charlotte's and engfah's chemistry is good but not one that comes to mind when i think about sizzling gl couples. the romance storyline was well-told and fit the overall narrative but wasn't super memorable. 6/10
Spare Me Your Mercy (2024)
police: honestly, even though one of the two main characters was a cop, i don't actually remember much about him or his work. or anything that involved him. incredibly uncompelling policing. 2/10
mystery: yet another show that involved doctor sammon, this genre really is her bread and butter! however, it was just an adaptation of one of her books, she didn't write the screenplay herself, and i feel like it shows in places. the mystery was fine? i wasn't a huge fan of this show overall, so i'm just incredibly lukewarm on it. 5/10
crime: the thing that did make this show stand out was that there was an actual ethical dilemma raised by the story. some of the crimes were motivated by a genuine desire to help people, and there was that question of morality vs legality, and when exactly help becomes abuse. 10/10 for crime
pacing: the pacing felt a little rushed in places, especially in the romance arc. still enjoyable overall. 6/10
romance: it was not for me. i just wasn't feeling it. i do love tor, but not together with jj. they gave it their best shot. 3/10
Goddess Bless You From Death (2025)
police: another good cop against a corrupt system. and how corrupt that system was! the actual police work in trying to find the killer(s) was well-paced and made sense. i wished the ending had just been a little bit harsher on king's corrupt father, if it had, i would have given this one full marks. 8/10
mystery: this show had, i feel, the best mystery storytelling of the bunch. it took us on a journey of slowly unraveling how everything fit together, what exactly happened in the past that led to the events in the present, and the reveals always came at the exact right moments. 11/10
crime: a lot of very visceral, gory murder and torture. basically exactly what you want out of this kind of show. 10/10
pacing: gorgeous, perfect pacing. never too fast, never too slow. 10/10
romance: you can't really go wrong with poohpavel. i found myself wishing their romance would be a little more high heat just because those two are so good at high heat, but what we got was perfectly fine, well-written and fitting the story. 9/10
Melody of Secrets (2025/26)
police: wack. that's all i can say about this one. the police work in this show was wack. body language analysis? hypnosis? a cop straight up lying to a suspect and using sex to try to get a confession out of him? wack. also hilarious to watch, i had the time of my life. 9/10
mystery: after about 3 episodes, i gave up on trying to follow the plot of this show and just took to cheering at every new and increasingly convoluted plot twist. less of a mystery and more of a funny sequence of unhinged nonsense. in my heart of hearts i want to give it a 12/10 because i love stuff like that, but i'll be reasonable. 6/10
crime: i don't remember any of the actual details of the crimes. there was murder, i guess? i was distracted by everything else. 2/10
pacing: initially, the pacing really worked for me, mostly because whenever the story threatened to become kind of dull, they added another secret sibling or a near-death experience or a scene of force shirtless. however, i thought the show dragged a bit towards the end. 5/10
romance: these two dudes were so fucking horny for each other. nothing that happened in the story ever dampened the spirit of the horn. forcebook are a bit of an acquired taste for many but baby, i have acquired it. 9/10
Dare You To Death (2025/26)
police: the two main guys are police officers, but you continuously get the feeling they just aren't very good at their jobs. how hard could it be to protect like 5 kids whose names and addresses you know from being murdered? i thought the killer could have been caught after three episodes if they had played their cards right. additionally, in some scenes, our main characters are straight up asshole cops doing things that are wildly illegal and the narrative presents this as good and necessary. -4/10
mystery: as much as i weirdly enjoyed watching this show for the first half, i honestly can't say the mystery was particularly compelling at any point. the show failed to make me care about any of the kids, so whenever one of them died, there was zero emotional impact. 1/10
crime: it was mostly fine, i guess? some of the murder scenes veered a bit into hilarity. logistically, nothing that happened in the climax made any sense. overall not memorable. 3/10
pacing: i was expecting the romance to be a slow burn but the guys were kissing in episode 3. the murders looked like they could be solved quickly yet the guys were dragging their feet. towards the end, the show just seemingly ran out of plot and became mostly filler. 2/10
romance: strange, but not uncompellingly so. it was obviously the main focus of the narrative, and i didn't mind that it was. joong and dunk both just look incredible on this show, and they are stunning together. visually, this romance is a 12/10 for sure. i just wished it had been more of a slow burn so them finally giving in to their desires would have made more of an impact. 5/10
Goddess Bless You From Death!
janainaart
annaxmalina
baratheonpilled
kianamaiart
blakekathryn
snowghoul
