God-damn true crime fucking numb-nuts!

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's Top 50 TV Shows of 2021.  

#25 : Only Murders In The Building

A new show starring Steve Martin and Martin Short didn’t have to try very hard; a splash of the old charm and viewers would have fallen in line regardless. The genius of Only Murders in the Building, though, was how deftly it glued its comic shtick to a rigorously tight murder mystery. Much, much better than it had any right to be.

I find Steve Martin and Martin Short a charming pair, but possibly a little too pleased with themselves and prone to over-extending the joke (to say the least), so I can't say I'd have bothered with this.  But, I have to now (particularly after my appalling behaviour on #24) and I'd have to say the final sentence of The Guardian's write-up has got my hopes up.

And well, to cut a long story short, The Guardian are indeed correct.  The Martins are charming together but they do need someone to keep them in line - and, obviously, here it's Selena Gomez.  What says ideal partnership more than two white guys in their 70s and a Latinx girl in her 20s?  But she acts a perfect "don't talk nonsense" foil to their utterly charming nonsense.  They're also amusingly pompous but they're written that way - they're certainly not taking themselves too seriously.  The three of them make a great, surprisingly likeable group and, most importantly, they get to wear some great coats.  I was pleasantly surprised by Selena but, as my eldest (who got surprisingly in to it from an initial position of "you watch weird stuff" when she walked in whilst I was watching episode 5 - when I asked her if she wanted to watch the finale, I got an "oooh - yes!") said, "it's not like she hasn't done acting before" - which is quite true, but this is the first thing she's been in that I haven't actively avoided.

It has a lot of special guest stars - Amy Ryan reprises her charming role from The Office, Tina Fey, Nathan Lane, Jane Lynch and a load of other faces you recognise without necessarily knowing their names.  And they play a host of characters who are both likeable, unlikeable and all things in between.  And, errr - Sting, who is very much not a good actor but does allow for an amusing run gag about people (and dogs) not standing close to him.

I often don't agree with The Guardian, but they are 100% correct that its genius is "how deftly it glued its comic shtick to a rigorously tight murder mystery" - it does an excellent job of introducing and discarding suspects at will whilst being nicely economic with the truth.  There's a real Knives Out vibe to it but, dare I say it, it's better than KO because it has more time to veer off course (and lead you astray as it does so).  And episode 7 is an absolute doozy of an episode with one line of dialogue, but it manages to make sense and be both amusing and suspenseful.

I don't normally laugh out loud at comedy of the physical variety, but the bit where Steve Martin snaps a cat's leg off involved a hearty chuckle.  And the bit where he's drugged and the lift doors keep shutting on him also raised a laugh - all of this was unusual for me.  There are plenty of other subtler funny bits as well - it mixes many genres (comedic and otherwise) across the season.  I'm also going to mention "NICE, HOT VEGETABLES" because it made me smile and I admire the creative thought that goes into such things. 

All in all, this was a totally unexpected joy and imho well worth checking out - it was nice that me & my eldest enjoyed watching it together and I suspect both members of my family that haven't seen it would enjoy it.  At the time of writing, it's on Disney+ (and not overly advertised there either).

#24 - In which I don't follow my own rules
#26 - Another great bit of telly I wouldn't have otherwise watched