Death and Other Details
SimilarThe Twilight Zone,
Watch afterThe 100, True Detective,
StudioABC Signature,
Hulu’s entry in the massive cast mystery trend starts with sexy confidence before collapsing under its own weight.
Mysteries have steadily made a comeback on screens and in multiplexes over the past several years. Kenneth Branagh offered old-school fun with his triptych (so far) take on master of the genre Agatha Christie’s works. Rian Johnson took Christie into modern times with a helping of class insight in Knives Out and Glass Onion. Things even get meta with the murder at an Agatha Christie play shenanigans of See How They Run. Series like The Afterparty and Murder at the End of the World took the genre to the small screen. With all this competition, of course Death and Other Details would try to find a new way of telling a familiar tale.
Early on, it seems series’ creators Heidi Cole McAdams and Mike Weiss have hit upon a simple but ingenious solution. Let’s get some sex in here! For all the delights of the massive cast mystery revival, each project has been noticeably short on heat. Daniel Craig can still fill out some swim trunks with the best of them, but he’s a married man with a barely glimpsed sweet hubby back home. Emma Corin’s Darby Hart had a romance with Harris Dickinson’s Bill in End of the World, but by the time we know them, those days are over. Death and Other Details, however, boldly declares that, to paraphrase High Fidelity, it’s ok to be investigating a murder and horny at the same time. Continue Reading →
A Murder at the End of the World
SimilarAmerican Horror Story, Broadchurch, Brotherhood, Deadly Class, Des, Erased, La Mante, Luther, Murder in the Heartland, Tarzan, The Chestnut Man, The Murder of Mary Phagan, The Shining, Troubles,
Watch afterFor All Mankind, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Reacher,
The Last of Us StudioFX Productions,
Hulu’s crime thriller/environmentalist warning is less than the sum of its references, but star Emma Corrin earns viewers’ attention.
The plot for A Murder at the End of the World goes a little something like this. A wealthy tech genius invites a group of similarly impressive individuals—including a detective who seems not to belong—to an isolated location for not entirely clear reasons. A murder sets everyone on edge as competing interests suggest several suspects and impede a proper investigation. Things only get worse as more die, and a storm ensures the group has no means of immediate escape.
If you find yourself thinking back to Glass Onion, rest assured you can’t be the only one. Functionally, the series plays as a kind of Anti-Glass Onion, the film’s cracked mirror image. While it is still plenty critical of the rich, it treats them with significantly more credulity. Their reputations earned, they’re genuinely talents apart from the rabble. The big issue isn’t that they're idiots and buffoons but that they’re squirreling away their gifts from the masses. Continue Reading →
Only Murders in the Building
Similar3rd Rock from the Sun,
Agatha Christie's Poirot American Horror Story,
Black Books Bodies, Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
Hospital Playlist I Love Lucy, Komi Can't Communicate, Love, Victor, Loveless, Murder in the Heartland, Murder Most Horrid, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, Noah's Arc, Stand Up!!, Star and Sky: Star in My Mind, That '70s Show, The Nanny,
Studio20th Television,
The surprise, sustained hit Only Murders in the Building brands itself as a comedy-mystery on Hulu. But, as season three hits the streaming service, with another murder for the Arconian trio of Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short), and Mabel (Selena Gomez) to solve, something becomes apparent. The series isn’t going for big laughs. Instead, it provides warmth, small chuckles, and genial goodness between the triumvirate. The show remains about found family, intergenerational friendships, and murder mysteries. It’s perhaps best described as a cozy mystery, a murder show with a heart of gold, an oxymoron of concepts. Continue Reading →