Have we reached peak cosy crime yet? The ubiquity of Death in Paradise and its spinoffs on BBC One this Christmas would at the very least suggest a surfeit. Never mind feeling overstuffed after your turkey dinner, they’ll soon be issuing Alka-Seltzer with the TV licence.
That said, this year’s Death in Paradise Christmas special took a small but noteworthy step in a less cosy direction. For the feature-length episode doubled as an introduction to the series’ latest lead detective, DI Mervin Wilson – Don Gilet having replaced Ralf Little in the top-billed role.
Wilson, an irritable, bucket-hat wearing Met detective, was visiting Saint Marie when a double murder occurred. The two victims, both dressed in Santa outfits, had somehow been shot dead with the same gun at the same time, but miles from each other. Baffling.
Ordered by his “guv” in London to assist a short-handed Commissioner Selwyn Patterson (Don Warrington), Wilson also had a secondary reason for his sojourn on the island. His birth mother, whom he had never met, lived there and Wilson had decided to finally face her. All too late, it transpired.
Casting a Black actor nullifies the perennial gripe that Death in Paradise has a “white saviour problem” in one stroke. I’m sure Gilet won’t have wanted his casting to appear so baldly tokenistic and I feel equally certain that it wasn’t. But even so, it negates the bothersome, colonially-tinged idea of the white blow-in solving crimes that are beyond the local police.
More important than the colour of Gilet’s skin is that he comes from a straight drama background – predecessors Ben Miller, Kris Marshall, Ardal O’Hanlon and Ralf Little having all arrived trailing comedy CVs. Until now, Gilet’s most high-profile role had been as a serial killer in EastEnders.
He certainly has more range than previous incumbents. And his character has fewer idiosyncrasies and more edge. Or as Darlene (Ginny Holder) put it, “he’s rude”. Wilson certainly seemed much more streetwise, although no doubt the spikiness will be softened by his stay on Saint Marie. The episode ended with Gilet’s character still determined to return to London, although of course the Death in Paradise formula dictates a change of heart.
Whether or not long-term fans welcome this slightly tougher, more intense lead, there was a reassuring emphasis on business-as-usual. The regular subordinates (Darlene, DS Naomi Thomas and Officer Dwayne Myers) took a proactive role in the investigation and there was even a brief cameo by Harry the Lizard.
The way in which Wilson managed to work out how both victims were killed at the same time with the same gun wasn’t entirely clear (to me, at least) but these Eureka moments of deduction are all part of the formula. And anyway, the whodunit plot seemed secondary during this transitional episode. Guest actors included Marcus Brigstocke as one of the dead Santas and that perennial trooper Angela Griffin (is there any popular TV show she hasn’t appeared in?) as his fiancée.
What you might call – at a stretch – the new realism was cleverly spliced with the show’s familiar cosy tropes. Wilson appeared nonplussed, for example, by the traditional, Poirot-like gathering of the suspects before the killer was revealed. “This is how we do it here,” the commissioner told him. In other words, there was going to be no unnecessary tampering with the series’ cherished blueprint.
But if the cosy wave has indeed crested then Death in Paradise, which helped kick-start the whole genre all the way back in 2011, has shown it’s able to refresh itself and move forward. And, yes, I do think Don Gilet was inspired casting.
‘Death in Paradise’ is streaming on BBC iPlayer
