The Good Ship Murder

This series is mildly pleasant, but it's not exactly compelling. The setting is the biggest draw. Mediterranean scenery and a cruise ship are a nice diversion while one is washing vegetables or emptying the dishwasher. Overall, I question the taste level.

The locations feel fake--long shots of various port cities, with scenes that could all have been filmed in one sunny place. There is a very limited attempt to mention the history or culture of each port in the story, but not much. Sometimes it's heavy-handed, e.g. In the Athens episode, two characters recite every item that might appear on a menu in a greek restaurant. "I must get that recipe for taramasalata!"

As a crime show, the plotting is not great. The suspects are often obvious, the acting too hammy. As a soap opera, it's also tiresome, with the unconsummated relationship of the two main characters dragging on endlessly and implausibly.

The characters one dimensional, and the casting isn't great. I don't get the appeal of Shayne Ward, who plays lounge singer Jack Grayling. He seems like a bit of a slob, and the greased back hair in Season 2 didn't help. The singing is truly dreadful, almost to the point of self-parody. Fortunately, it's at the end of each episode, so I can turn it off or mute it without worry.

I was hoping for something more like Death in Paradise, and there are many similarities. But that show had more wit, at least in the first few seasons, and more interesting "locked room" and "impossible" crimes.

This show is a) good for multi-tasking, as it doesn't take a lot of attention to follow; and b) it shows enough of life aboard a giant, tacky cruise ship to make it unnecessary to take subject one's self to the experience in real life.

First the good things: Shane Ward (who I had never heard of before) can sing and his acting actually isn't bad, especially given it isn't his first job. There are other decent actors in the cast too. The show also gets extra points for - as far as I can tell - using the real locations and for including some characters who at least try to speak languages other than English. Last time I looked, Madame Blanc, for example, hadn't even started trying to speak French!

But that's about it. The plots are a bit average, some are better than others and as has been pointed out the involvement of Jack, Kate & the rest of the ship-board characters in the crimes isn't really credible. However, this is NOT the only TV crime drama that stretches credulity like this, especially at the moment.

This is not great, ground-breaking telly, but there's nothing really wrong with it. It's lovely to look at and it actually doesn't always shy away from the realities of life - episode 3 is particularly good here.

It's a perfectly nice way to spend a winter evening.

I'm enjoying this show. It's lighthearted following in the steps of Death in Paradise, and the scenery is amazing.

The cinematography at the various locations is superb and really makes me want to visit all the ports they've been to.

It doesn't take itself too seriously and this is all for the better.

We don't always need dark, gritty crime dramas every time.

The sunshine helps too, especially in the middle of a UK year of mainly rain.

When it's miserable outside it's good to watch a show like this.

Shayne Wards wardrobe is full of multi coloured linen clothes and they look great. The costume designer has done well.

The stories have been varied and some of the dialogue has been funny.

What's not to like.

I hope there are more series.

A Luxury Mediterranean cruise ship sets sail, stopping at all the major destinations, but at each stop, murder, and on the case is former Detective now crooner Jack Grayling, and first officer Kate Woods.

If you're a fan of shows such as Mallorca Files, Shakespeare and Hathaway etc, I am sure you will enjoy this series. Don't expect anything too serious, and expect to be made to believe some rather impossible scenarios.

Gorgeous location work, it really does emphasise and make the most of The Med. I spent a fair bit of time in Malta, and I may be wrong, but did Malta double up?

Shayne Ward absolutely makes this series, he has that combination of being talented, likeable and charismatic, he really does help to make this show pretty good. Jack is a bit of a bad luck charm, he's The Jessica Fletcher of The Mediterranean, wherever he goes, murder follows.

Shayne's songs are really good, especially his version of True Faith by New Order.

Some nice guest performances along the way, and the regular cast are all very good.

As it stands series two has been commissioned, looking forward to that.

7/10.

On the plus side this is family friendly series set on a luxury cruise liner allowing each episode to be set in different beautiful location, which means on the down side as each episode goes by it stretches credulity that one liner could have so many murders associated with it. However this is light entertainment and there are plenty of other series that suffer with the same problem that many are happy to overlook. Unfortunately the acting is very poor and the solution to the murders contrived, a poor man's Agatha Christie. All that being said I suspect that is exactly how it was meant to be written. It stars amongst others Shayne Ward who is a singer and ex winner of the X Factor, so appropriately each episode concludes with him in his role as ship's entertainment officer singing a song. It is what it is and if you take it as that it is a pleasant enough show.