Lawless returns in ‘My Life is Murder’

Lucy Lawless is back! Did she ever leave? Famous for the syndicated series “Xena: Warrior Princess,” Lawless has appeared over the years in “Parks & Recreation,” “Spartacus” and “The Code,” among other shows.

My favorite post-“Xena” role for Lawless was as Maddy Rierdon, America’s undersecretary of agriculture in a series of made-for-TV movies, including “Locusts,” a bug infestation disaster movie that received a great deal of critical DDT from TV reviewers back in 2005.

Lawless stars in the Australian detective series “My Life Is Murder,” now streaming on Acorn. As the title implies, “Murder” keeps things on the light side.

Lawless plays ex-homicide detective Alexa Crowe, dragged out of very recent retirement to lend her peerless skills to her former colleague Detective Inspector Keiran Hussey (Bernard Curry), with the help of freelance 20-something Madison Feliciano (Ebony Vagulans, “The Heart Guy”). Madison is a whiz at tracking down data and infiltrating other people’s phones and computers. But she has focus issues and has to be dragged off online shopping sites to get the job done.

Like many television shows, “Murder” seems to tell women of a certain age that they can still have it all. The show is shot through with product placements for coffee bars and fancy kitchen gadgets. In the pilot, Alexa tracks down a male gigolo suspect and turns down his services, even though he wasn’t going to charge!

“Murder” has the featherweight feel of USA network procedurals like “Royal Pains.” Look for plenty of musical montages, pretty shots of its Melbourne locations and scenes of Alexa in her kitchen, baking bread when she’s not solving murder mysteries. If that’s not “having it all,” what is?

› A comedian and an anthropologist walk into a bar. That’s the unlikely setup of “Mystic Britain” (9 p.m., Smithsonian), a survey of the sceptered isle’s most mysterious sites and occult-laden legends.

Clive Anderson (“Whose Line Is It Anyway?”) joins anthropologist Mary-Ann Ochota to visit ancient sites like the ancient Church of St. Mary Troston, where the walls are filled with medieval demonic symbols.

Week after week, they will find evidence in plain sight that reflects a culture obsessed with the idea that demons walked among us and that the woods were filled with witches and spirits.

› The “POV” (10 p.m., PBS, TV-PG, check local listings) documentary “The Distant Barking of Dogs” follows a 10-yearold boy and his grandmother as they navigate the violence of war-torn Eastern Ukraine.

› “Bachelor in Paradise” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-14) enters its sixth season. Somehow I missed the first five. Participants from past seasons of “The Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” arrive at a Mexican resort to canoodle and cavort.

In what known universe are people really named Blake and Caelynn? Why ask? This isn’t real; it’s a reality TV watcher’s idea of “Paradise.”

Contact Kevin McDonough at kevin .tvguy@gmail.com.