Maybe someone’s laced our tea, infiltrated the TV scheduling, or employed Derren Brown to hypnotise us on a street corner, but currently we are all infatuated with detectives. Investigateur extraordinaire Hercule Poirot may have said his final farewells last year, but there are a million more surreptitious sleuths lining up to take the place of the much-loved Belgian eccentric, sneaking stealthily into every available timeslot.

There are, it seems, plenty more where Poirot came from (I’m talking figuratively here – they’re not all Belgian). Subtle as they may be on screen, the plentiful presence of private eyes has not gone unnoticed. It’s not just the smooth Sherlock-types, but the complex Luthers and the whimsical Lewises too, not to mention the maternal, empathetic ones and the surly ones with heart conditions, à la Broadchurch’s Olivia Colman and David Tennant respectively.

So smitten are we that the brains behind this year’s National Television Awards have created an entirely new accolade to accommodate them. Among those in the ‘TV detective’ category are Colman and Tennant, Idris Elba and Benedict Cumberbatch. To quote the latter, the game is (very much) on.

Will they be judged on crime-solving prowess or performance? If the award is best detective, then I’m going with Cumberbatch. If it’s on best performance, then I’d pick Colman (although it’s a close call).

Yet pitting Colman and Tennant against each other is a shame. Their characters’ dynamic was an important part of Broadchurch. It seems wrong to compare their performances when each complemented the other so well. Perhaps the re-categorisation is understandable. Given our obsession, any of these nominees would surely be robbed of a win – and this time the crime-solvers would be the culprits. Obviously, due to the nature of a public vote, the awards favour performances from actors in popular programmes, meaning standout performances in more niche offerings are likely to miss out.

Consequently, my investigator-of-choice didn’t even make the longlist. Top Of The Lake was an exquisitely shot and scripted six-part drama in which Det. Robin Griffin (Elizabeth Moss) investigated the disappearance of a pregnant schoolgirl. Moss tracked Robin’s increasing fragility beautifully throughout, giving a devastatingly well-pitched portrayal of her subsequent emotional breakdown as her past caught up with her. It was a performance worlds apart from the frenzied brilliance of Cumberbatch, but every bit as captivating in its own right.