Detectorists on the Detectorists

About Detectorists on the Detectorists

Detectorists on the Detectorists What happens when real metal detectorists watch the greatest TV show ever made about metal detecting? Detectorists on the detectorists brings together some of the UK detecting community's most beloved voices to do exactly that. Watch, rewatch, and lovingly dissect the BAFTA-winning BBC series Detectorists, episode by episode. Hosted by Katie from the Detecting History Podcast, each episode features a guest presenter from the real-world detecting community sharing their take on the show that captured the heart and soul of the hobby like nothing before or since. Featuring guest presenters Emma (Instagram: @emloveoldstuff), Ross (Instagram: @detectorosst), Karl (Instagram: @thementaldetector), and Ellie (Instagram: @miss_detectorist and YouTube: Miss Detectorist). Whether you're a detectorist who sees yourself in every scene, or a fan of the show curious about the real community behind it, this is the podcast for you. Part rewatch pod. Part love letter to the hobby. If you enjoy this show, come and find us over on the Detecting History Podcast for interviews, finds, and the history behind the hobby. Available on all major platforms and on YouTube at Detecting History. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

Publisher

Katie MacDoyle

Category

leisure · society & culture · tv & film

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

23 May 2026

Latest episode

23 May 2026

Latest episodes

20 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   23 May 2026

   British Birds, Not Including Seagulls

   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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

2. 

   23 May 2026

   Detectorists Are Time Travellers

   Series 3, Episode 6 of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook. Host Katie and guest Ellie(@miss_detectorist, Miss Detectorist on YouTube) review the series finale, and it is a moving one. It opens with Andy convinced he has found a Bronze Age spearhead. He runs to find water to clean it, Lance gets excited alongside him, and they both realise it is a broken fence spike. Lance claims he knew all along. The apartment switcheroo is complete: Kate is moving her things onto Tony's canal boat, announcing it as my very own ship, while Lance stands on the towpath unable to even look at it. At the Scout hall, Terry produces the proof copy of The Common Buttons of Northwest Essex by Terence Seymour. Print run: 45. Russell suggests his copy be left unsigned to make it worth more. Andy announces the club is invited to join the last day on the permission. Terry has a brand new gazebo, three metres by nine. The scene in the White Horse pub is one of the best in the series. Art and Paul are sitting against the back wall, arms folded, and Art delivers his well well well look who's come crawling back. Paul, increasingly the steadier of the two, clocks immediately that they are not really interested in bats and asks what they have actually found. It emerges that Art and Paul have been barred from NCMD digs since the troubles. Andy makes them honorary DMDC members for the day. Art fights back tears. They just wanted to be part of the gang all along, Ellie observes. Hurt people hurt people. The rally arrives and it is everything. The whole gang comes over the hill with their detectors in a scene directly referencing the barn-raising sequence from the 1985 film Witness, complete with a version of the score woven through Johnny Flynn's theme. Terry gives his briefing, thanks Andy and Lance for opening up the permission, and welcomes their new friends Paul and Phil. Lance tries to shoo everyone to spread out. Nobody can hear him. They all have their headphones on. Varda finds a bronze finger ring in the soil, tries it on her finger, finds it too large, and walks over to Louise. From across the field, Andy and Becky arriving from the auction see Varda on one knee. Andy returns to tell Lance he is a homeowner. Lance only hears the first part. Becky outbid everyone in the room while Andy's legs stopped working, with Veronica's money behind her. Lance and Art swap machines. The Garrett Orado, it turns out, was built in 1978. Same year as the TR7. As the shadows lengthen and the gazebo comes down, Lance gives Andy the speech. Archaeologists gather the facts, piece together the jigsaw. But detectorists pick up the scattered memories, fill in the personality. They are the storytellers. Detectorists are time travellers. Andy considers this. Yeah, all right, he says. I'll give you that. They walk back across the field. A drone shot rises. The magpies have a scuffle in the lunch tree and the gold coins begin to rain down, glinting in the late sun, landing at their feet. Johnny Flynn sings a new verse, heard for the first time. Hoard me in the highest bough. Detectorists Characters: Andy (Mackenzie Crook), Lance (Toby Jones), Becky (Rachel Stirling), Veronica (Diana Rigg), Tony (Orion Ben), Terry (David Sterne), Sheila (Sophie Thompson), Russell (Pearce Quigley). Find Ellie at @miss_detectorist on Instagram and at Miss Detectorist on YouTube. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

3. 

   23 May 2026

   I Think Hedgehogs Were Flat

   Series 3, Episode 5 of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook. Host Katie and guest Emma Youell (@emloveoldstuff) review the penultimate episode of series three. Art and Paul open in camo gear with binoculars, watching the field. They launch a drone to get a better look. It will not stop ascending. The batteries last twenty minutes. It crashes back down a foot away from them. Meanwhile a solar energy worker arrives, flings the farm gate open and walks off leaving it swinging, which prompts a real conversation between Katie and Emma about ancient trees, the Sycamore Gap felling, and why the lunch tree itself is now under threat from tree clearance. Andy's solution: bat boxes. If bats move in, the tree is protected. He cannot make one without his shed. Kate visits Tony on the canal boat, unsure whether she needs to be invited aboard like a vampire. They talk about Lance and Maggie, Kate promises to move out and give them their space, and leaves telling Tony she loves her ship. Andy, now on litter picking duty, rescues a hedgehog from the road. His workmate Steve thought hedgehogs were flat. He has only ever seen them on the road. Andy takes the hedgehog into nearby woodland, stumbles on a derelict thatched cottage with an auction sign in the window, no reserve, Colchester, 22nd July, and takes a photo. Andy climbs the lunch tree to install the bat box and gets within a foot of the magpie nest without looking in. Lance accidentally reaches Paul on the phone while calling the Bat Action Trust helpline, Paul plays along and produces his official bat ID badge, and for one brief moment stands his ground against Art before Art tries to trade bat protection for the field permission. Sly bastards, corrupt conservationists, says Lance. Back under the tree, they hear it. Metal on metal. Coins shifting directly above their heads. The episode ends. Featuring: Andy (Mackenzie Crook), Lance (Toby Jones), Becky (Rachel Stirling), Veronica (Diana Rigg), Tony (Orion Ben). Find Emma at @emloveoldstuff 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.