Of crime, comedy

him, ’make sure you have fun with it because the more fun you have up there… the more fun it will be to watch’.”

The show revolves around celebrity actor Harley Carter (O’connell), a TV detective who returns to his home town to escape the scandal of his wife cheating on him.

Fortunately, he has his childhood friends Sam Shaw (Sydney Tamiia Poitier), now a detective, and Dave Leigh (Kristian Bruun), to distract him. By the way, O’connell studied with Tamiia Poitier.

The itch to solve crimes, sans a script and cameras, sees Carter shadow Shaw on her investigations. The mayor then decides to have him join the police department as a consultant, much to the chagrin of police chief Angus Pershing (John Bourgeois). And so a crime-solving duo is formed.

O’connell said: “I’ve watched pretty much every episode of Castle. I’ve watched every episode of Psych. It’s just like those shows but instead of someone being a psychic or literary author, I’m a TV detective. And there’s an extra level of cheese that I have to play.”

He added: “I try to imagine as David Caruso moving to a small town… how would he help the police solve crimes? If I had committed a murder and I was being interviewed by David Caruso with his sunglasses, I would probably admit to what I did. This is how I approached Carter.”

The drama is offset by comic levity, often generated by his cheesy lines.

As for his work commitments, he juggles his itinerary with his actress wife, Rebecca Romijn.

“When my wife is working, I make sure I’m not because we have two children that we gotta watch,” he shared.

And he seems to enjoy his downtime with his family at home.

“We love watching documentary crime dramas. We love reality TV – I’m not ashamed to admit that. We’ve been watching Below Deck with some South African dude showing off his muscles and hooking up with girls on the boat.”

Back to Carter and why people should watch it, he said: “We are asking audiences to suspend reality for a second to believe an actor helps the police solve crimes. To pull that off, there have to be actual stakes. And, in order to do that, you need great actors like Sydney and Kristian.”

Before our time ran out, he said: “I just got to give a big shout out to South Africa. I bumped into a group of people from South Africa in Los Angeles. I don’t know why so many of them move here. But they were the kindest and nicest people – and very hardworking. I’m in awe of South Africans.”

And many no doubt will be in awe of him in Carter, too.

airs on Universal TV (Dstv channel 117) on Tuesdays at 8pm.