Fri 4 Sep 2020
A Locked Room TV Episode Review: DEATH IN PARADISE “Murder Begins at Home.â€
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[6] Comments
DEATH IN PARADISE “Murder Begins at Home.†BBC, 28 February 2019. Ardal O’Hanlon (DI Jack Mooney), Aude Legastelois (DS Madeleine Dumas), Tobi Bakare (Officer J.P. Hooper), Shyko Amos (Officer Ruby Patterson), Don Warrington (Commissioner Selwyn Patterson). Created by Robert Thorogood. Written by James Hall. Director: Richard Signy.
Imagine unlocking the door and walking into your police station in the morning, as DI Jack Mooney does every morning, and finding a body dead on the floor. He is fully clothed but has no identification on him, nor any other personal effects. Cause of death: strangulation, as the marks on his neck indicate. But how did he get in and the killer get out?
To compound matters, it is soon learned that the dead man was a member of a tourist group trekking by horseback high up in the hills, and he was last seen alive going to bed for the night as a ferocious storm came upon them. How did he get from there to the police station to be found dead on the floor in the morning with all the doors secured?
It is quite a puzzle, and a lot of fun afterward is tracing back and agreeing that yes, all of the clues were there, if only one was paying attention. It is also clear, afterward, how, as good magicians do, the screenwriter managed to keep the audience’s eye off the mystery of howdunit by concentrating on the whodunit. I enjoyed this one!
September 4th, 2020 at 5:43 pm
I agree. Good show. I liked O’Hanlon as Jack. I hope the new guy grows into the role.
September 4th, 2020 at 6:18 pm
I accidentally started the series with Season 8, and this episode was the last of that season. I have read that Mooney leaves the island midway through Season 9. Even though I’d like to continue, I think I’ll go back and start over again with Season 1.
September 4th, 2020 at 9:51 pm
Good series, unusually high turnover of regulars, but often solid mystery plots.
September 4th, 2020 at 10:47 pm
I don’t think I’ve read anywhere why there have been so many people coming and going from the show. It is because most (all?) of the filming is done on location and so far from home?
September 5th, 2020 at 6:04 am
Death in Paradise has been an excellent series with 72 episodes to date. Each one features an impossible crime with the clues displayed, including an Ellery Queen style summary before the final revelations as to who committed the crime and how it was achieved. I have ranted at great length in CADS about the way that reviewers in the press denounce the series as unbelievable, not realising that the stories all fit the trope of impossible crimes, something they know little about. They say things like it’s unrealistic that so many murders would occur on one Caribbean island and speculate that regularly large viewing figures are because the series are shown in the winter months and the audience like to see the sunshine and characters in shorts. With every new series I fear that the high standard might slip but so far it hasn’t. It has been an excellent set of stories.
I believe that the regular actors are committed to six months away to film a full series which, as you suggest, probably accounts for the regular turnover.
September 5th, 2020 at 10:31 am
Generally speaking, I tend to ignore both so-called movie and TV critics, and if the latter are down on this series, even more so.
It is interesting to note, though, that the user reviews on IMDb are far more interested in the characters than they are the mystery stories. Here, for example:
“It’ll take me time to adapt to DS Madeleine Dumas – she seems to be more of a Camille clone than a Florence one right now, but thankfully Ruby is now a lot more toned down than how she started.
“The mystery element isn’t one of the series finest, but it’s all passable enough.”
You and I, who are interested in the series as a fine example of mystery and detective work on TV, may be in the minority of its many fans.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9510372/reviews?ref_=tttr_ql_op_3