sublimineyes

The hook is Ryan Reynolds. Feels like a story and actor that will work well together. The first few minutes it makes sense, it has a sense of "could be interesting". But it quickly runs out of steam, becoming a clearly derivative piece, mixing nods to the excellent Truman Show and excellent Matrix but with none of the warmth or intellect of those too. Nor does it have pacing. Nor does it have likeable characters (even Reynolds proves paper thin). And then they ladel on "white privilege", "gender", "patriarchy" on no basis and with no subtlety. I give up. Gets 3 for the first few minutes with Reynolds, everything else a zero, if this was possible.

It looks good. The pace feels spot on for easy watching, put brain into neutral, eye candy TV. There is a small dollop interest each episode. And O'Reilly and Lesser have presence. But that's it. None of the other performers are more than cutouts, and mostly 2nd rate omnifrowns at that. There are actually no twists or turns to the plot. Inane plot devices are used because, well, beats me (a high school student could plot better). There is no real tension. And maybe they aren't but the names they use appear (not unusual for Star Wars) to be clear rip offs (Ghorman from Gormenghast, Jedha from Jeddah). But, but, it does look and pace well for easy watching, brain in neutral TV, so got to be worth 6 stars.

I'm not aware of any whodunnit show using a puzzle setter as the lead character before so this could have been interesting, had a unique take. Unfortunately the puzzle setter here is simply used as a hook to hang an ill selected pick n mix of familiarities on.

The end result is yet more comfy cardigan fare, I guess designed to lure in viewers who liked a certain performer, or certain interior decor or clothes, or certain types of music. At least I hope so, rather than this all being at the whim of the show's creator.

The big problems are:

1) apart from a period in episode 1 (and slightly in 2 and 3), David Mitchell is David Mitchell. You've seen him before and he definitely isn't the character introduced at the beginning of episode 1. Where did that character go? Why cast Mitchell if the directors (especially the director of eps 4-6) are just going to have Mitchell act his normal stuff, which isn't the character introduced at the start of Ep1 or the character needed to produce actual tension, intrigue, interest?

2) there is no chemistry. If this is supposed to be a 2020s Jonathan Creek go back and watch and you'll find chemistry between Davies and Quentin. There is none between Mitchell and Martin.

3) while Mitchell feels undirected, Martin feels simply miscast. A sort of, "ooh, she's a bit quirky, we'll go with her".

4) the support cast (including the sets, look, music, colour palette) are paper thin cliches or jarring "comedic" fillers

5) apart from 1 episode it fails at being either a whodunnit or a howdunnit. Instead it feels like the audience is supposed to bask in the warm, cardigan covered glow of Mitchell's reveal

6) but surely the pleasure of a howdunnit is to learn something, or test yourself. And the pleasure of having a puzzle setter as lead should be to experience multiple types of puzzles, which each episode clearly built around a type of puzzle introduced early in that episode and with a framework the audience can get involved in. Or something along these lines. But none of this happens.

This really is a hugely underachieving show. But with a comfy cardigan.