Last year was the first time since 1998 that HBO did not have a show in the lineup for best drama series at the Emmy Awards. Since "The Sopranos" appeared in the race in 1999, it and/or its network kin "Deadwood" or "Six Feet Under" filled at least one slot. On two occasions, HBO had two shows in the drama series category: 2003 ("The Sopranos," "Six Feet Under") and 2005 ("Deadwood," "Six Feet Under").

To add insult to injury for the paycaster, rival Showtime scored its first drama series nod with "Dexter" as did two basic cable networks — FX with "Damages" and AMC with the eventual winner "Mad Men."

So there must be a sigh of relief over at HBO with the good reviews for this weekend's debut of "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," the new drama series based on the bestselling mysteries by Alexander McCall Smith. Grammy-winning R&B singer Jill Scott stars as Precious Ramotswe — Botswana's answer to Jessica Fletcher ("Murder She Wrote") — with Tony winner Anika Noni Rose ("Caroline or Change") as her trusty sidekick Grace.

Sunday's two-hour pilot was the last project helmed by the late Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella ("The English Patient"). Minghella and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Richard Curtis ("Four Weddings and a Funeral") held the pen for this first installment. After Minghella's untimely death, Emmy nominee Charles Sturridge ("Brideshead Revisited") took over directing the six one-hour episodes of "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" while Tony-nominated playwright Nicholas Wright ("Vincent in Brixton") handled scripting.

For Gina Bellafante of the New York Times, "There is a slow-growth, artisanal quality to the franchise, and the series, which stars an excellent Jill Scott as Precious, remains true to it. Anyone impatient with languorous pacing on television is at orange-alert risk of feeling fidgety. Place is paramount in detective fiction and, in due respect, the series was filmed on location in Botswana, imagined in accordance with Mr. McCall Smith’s detailed, exuberant vision."

As Robert Bianco of USA Today notes, "most of her cases are fairly easily solved, and most turn out all right. There's a temptation to call such stories 'small,' but this one surely isn't; it's life-size. We're just used to seeing so many things on TV that are wildly exaggerated and larger than life that anything real can seem slight. A Grammy-winning singer, Scott imbues her character with a natural warmth and charm, and if she's initially not quite the grown-up force Precious needs to be, she grows into the role as the series goes along. You'll find the same growth with Rose, who's a bit too overtly comic at first, but brings great depth of feeling to Grace's later troubles."

And Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times concluded her rave review thus: "Here is a slow and careful exploration of the dark and sunny rivers that run through the human soul, the ever-teetering balance between good and evil that keeps the world spinning. Scenes unspool, lives unwind, wicked acts are done, but so is justice, and under the lovely and indifferent African sun, it seems there is all the time in the world. It's hard to imagine a better place to be."

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Photo: HBO

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