The plot revolves around the lives, loves and metal-detecting ambitions of Andy and Lance, members of the Danebury Metal Detecting Club.

The first episode starts with a three-minute sequence showing an Anglo-Saxon priest carrying a holy book and an aestel (a pointer stick similar to that associated with the Alfred Jewel) in a sack and fleeing mounted spearmen.

The shot pans upwards to reveal Andy and Lance walking across the field in the present day, detecting as they go.

[23] Reviewing the opening episode for The Guardian, Sam Wollaston said: "Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones shine in the third and final series of this beautifully written and performed slice of life.

The club missed out on a large finder’s fee (for the gold found at the end of the previous series), which instead went to "Simon and Garfunkel", and need to find a way to raise funds to save the hall.

[38] One location in Essex was used in Detectorists: the scenes involving Lance's girlfriend Toni's houseboat, 'Elsie', were filmed at Paper Mill Lock, Little Baddow.

David Renshaw, writing for The Guardian, had particular praise for the "delightful double-act" Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones.

Renshaw points to the "biggest ratings BBC4 has ever had for a comedy" as evidence that "Detectorists has clearly struck the sort of gold that Lance and Andy spend hours sweeping the fields for".

[47] In the US media, The New York Times writer Mike Hale describes Detectorists as a "distinctive creation – not for everyone, but bound to be fiercely loved by those who fall into its rhythms".

[48] Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times "can't recommend it enough", saying: "Like the ordinary lives it magnifies, Detectorists has the air of seeming to be small and immense at once, to be about hardly anything and almost everything.