Slow death on TV
Death In Paradise (Prime, Sundays) is like the family pooch. It’s been around for so long and, for some, is as important as housie night in a rest home.
It has a winning formula that’s as familiar as making salad dressing. The series is about law and order in the idyllic island of Saint Marie, somewhere in the Caribbean.
There, a tonic isn’t a medical pick-me-up, but something you drink with gin under a beach umbrella. The sun still sets on the British Empire and DI Humphrey Goodman heads Her Majesty’s police force on the island.
However, when Tom Lewis is found murdered on board his yacht, Humphrey traces the alleged culprits back to Citymet Bank in England. Four of their executives chartered the yacht on the day Tom was killed.
Humphrey, Dwayne and Florence leave the sun, sin and sand of the island and travel to London. There, with the help of DI Mooney (Ardal O’hanlon, who still thinks he’s starring in Father Ted) they interview the high-flying bankers.
They get stonewalled, but suspect Frank Henderson, Head of Acquisitions, has something to hide. So they return to interrogate him and discover he’s acquired something else. It looks like a bullet. Frank is as dead in his office as Tom is on the yacht.
This episode is a two-parter, so they only have tomorrow night to find, arrest and hand over the guilty party to Liz and Phil so they can return to cruise control on the island.
Death In Paradise is the equivalent of elevator music. Unlike Broadchurch (TV One, Sundays), it’s easy to watch, doesn’t make demands on the viewer and you can get a good night’s sleep afterwards. You can also miss a few series and know the team is still there to ensure that, if there are Pirates Of the Caribbean, they won’t come ashore on Saint Marie.
A successful formula has many virtues and Death In Paradise has most of them.
Did you see a familiar face in Dunblane: Our Story? (History 73, Monday) The killing of 16 young children, their teacher and the wounding of 14 others on March 13 1996, was the worst act of shooting in British history.
The comment ‘‘savagery that has stunned this town’’ was made by one of the many TV journalists who swarmed to the Scottish town, just outside Stirling. The face and whiskers belonged to Mark Sainsbury, before his moustache returned home to host 7pm’s current affairs.
His comment and the remark by head teacher Ron Taylor, that ‘‘evil visited us here yesterday and we don’t know why’’, were remembered as parents and surviving children commemorated the 20th anniversary.
The documentary could have been another, unnecessary look back on a tragic incident, however, the massacre by loner Thomas Hamilton resulted in the families campaigning to successfully persuade the British Government to ban handguns. But it came three years too late. The 30th anniversary of Aramoana shootings occurs in three years’ time. Will there be a grizzly re-enactment, an exploitation like the Out Of The Blue movie or will NZ On Air commission something worthwhile and restrained?
It was good to see how Mark Sainsbury’s whiskers have flourished in 20 years. Then his moustache was a sentence, now it’s a statement.
If you don’t know what a coroner does, then a new TV programme won’t help you that much. The Coroner (UKTV Wednesdays) seems to have started in mid series, so it was a scramble to identify with the characters and Jane Kennedy’s 9-5pm job.
Her nose appears to be a diagnose as she sticks it all over the place to find the cause of death. But this series about a coroner, her bolshie daughter Beth and her curious relationship with old flame, DS Davey Higgins, set in a charming Devon village, is diverting enough.
To record a verdict of accidental death when a teenager falls from a tower, Jane and Davey interview a number of young people about what happened. The dialogue was the strength of the episode.
The teens talked as if they were texting. If this is the language of the future, then I’m scared.