The fame of My Roommate is a Detective seems to exceed that of this series, which is set in a similar era. However, as a detective series, this series actually surpasses My Roommate, with more interesting stories that are solved by a more believable detective, who has good deductive powers without being ridiculously intelligent and knowledgeable. My Roommate is a Detective may have better characterisation and more interesting relationships between characters, but I find the stories in Detective L to be better stories in he whodunit genre.

Detective L consists of stories of disparate cases with something something related to a criminal known as Captain connecting quite a few of the cases. Many of the cases have interesting twists that keep the viewer guessing. I particularly like the penultimate case involving a wealthy man who is rumored to have a valuable painting. The case of the serial killer on the loose is also interesting even though the twists may be overdone (the twists for this case seem to be written in without a care for being realistic because the writers think that the viewer can only be impressed by an outcome that s/he cannot guess correctly). Overall, I find the mysteries with simpler solutions to have a more classic whodunit charm. Apart from the case of the wealthy man with a valuable painting, the case of how a numbers of diamonds go missing from a safe are a case in point.

The biggest problem with the series is that it builds up and promises a story connecting at least some of the cases, but doesn't complete it. I'm OK with cliffhangers and Season 2 teases, but this one goes overboard, promises too much before basically saying in the last episode, "Hah, but we haven't written what you've been waiting to see for the last 20 episodes!" (This also hints at how the writers actually work -- there can be any number of twists and any kind of unpredictable outcomes as long as they feel like writing them into the series. Anyone could have done it in the whodunnits of this series, so the person who has done it may not be really convincingly the one that must have done it.)

Most of the individual cases are engaging on their own to make this series an interesting watch. But reviewing it is like reviewing an incomplete series. If there is a Season 2 that gives the story a sense of completion, it should probably be seen as a part of this season of this series.