IAN HYLAND on the weekend’s telly
Mcdonald and Dodds, ITV ★★★★
As the camera panned across a backdrop of dreaming spires and gleaming limestone buildings, you could have been forgiven for thinking ITV had revived Inspector Morse.
However, this was Bath, not Oxford. And, beautiful Georgian setting aside, this new detective series is no Morse mark II. For a start, it’s funny. It feels like a cross between Midsomer Murders, Columbo and BBC1’S excellent daytime nonsense, Shakespeare and Hathaway.
Tala Gouveia (DCI Mcdonald) and Jason Watkins (her underling, DS Dodds) play the mismatched duo who, despite their differences, get the job done.
As well as the odd couple cliché, there are plenty of other well-worn detective motifs. Dodds is the library-loving loner who keeps his glasses on top of his head and drops regular hints about historic heartache in his personal life.
Mcdonald, meanwhile, is the career cop who has moved from the mean streets of South London and is now desperate to prove herself in the West Country. It works a treat, with Gouveia in particular showing superb comic timing and an absolute command of the theatrical eye-roll.
She even managed to upstage the first episode’s big-name guest star, Robert Lindsay, who was having far too much fun playing eccentric inventor and Panama hat enthusiast Max Crockett. It won’t please everyone, of course. Viewers who have watched far too many gritty police procedurals were no doubt yelling “That’s not the correct crime scene protocol!” before the halfhour mark.
Not me though. I’ll take fun over forensics every time.