Now in its third season, The Chelsea Detective has become one of those mystery shows that has gotten into a comfortable groove. We’ve established the quirks and personalities of the regular characters, and the 90-minute episode format gives us time to get some insight into their lives outside of the squad room. But it also is in a mode where sometimes the mystery in a particular episode doesn’t feel well thought-out.
THE CHELSEA DETECTIVE SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A woman and her teenage son walk through a community garden with the woman who runs it.
The Gist: Roz Chambers (Alexandra Gilbreath), a botanical horticulturalist, has been on a long waiting list for a plot at this garden in Chelsea, and she’s finally been able to take over a plot abandoned by its previous holder. When she and her son Kieron (Ben Ward) start digging up the lot to rid it of weeds and overgrowth, though, Kieron ends up finding a skeleton buried in the dirt.
DI Max Chambers (Adrian Scarborough), his partner, DS Layla Walsh (Vanessa Emme) and medical examiner Ashley Wilton (Sophie Stone) arrive on the scene, and Walsh finds a wallet and ID, with the name of a man that’s been missing for a few months. But when Ashley examines the remains back in the morgue, she figures out that it’s not the body of the person on the ID. Through facial reconstruction software, Walsh matches up a rendering made by Ashley to another missing man, a former military officer who was recently seen guarding American ambassador Emily Morgan (Alex Kingston).
In the meantime, DC Jess Lombard (Lucy Phelps) and DC Connor Pollock (Peter Bankolé) are lobbying for Max’s attention because it’s appraisal time. Max, for his part, is on a dating site at the encouragement of his aunt, but when Max and Layla go to Roz for some help with horticultural evidence Ashley took from the scene, Layla notices that Roz is being flirtatious with Max. It leads Max to have a drink with Roz, but that blows up when he runs into his estranged wife Astrid Fischer (Anamaria Marinca), who is also on a date.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Created by Peter Fincham, The Chelsea Detective has the same easygoing lightly-dramatic vibe of other Acorn shows like The Madame Blanc Mysteries.
Our Take: The first regular episode of Season 3 of The Chelsea Detective (after last December’s holiday special) was a strange one for a couple of reasons. For one, it laid out a confusing mystery, with two skeletons being found on the same plot, and the former plot holder, Graham Doherty (Conor Mullen), being the connection between the two bodies. And then, when Max and Layla eventually figure out who the killer is, they are the ones who do most of the talking while interviewing the person.
But it’s also interesting that the episode’s most prominent guest star, Alex Kingston, is not only playing an American — which we don’t think we’ve ever seen her play before — but is in a bit of a passive role in the mystery. She’s never really considered a suspect, and she doesn’t seem to do much more than being an impediment to Max and Layla’s investigation, citing immunity and other diplomatic rules.
The episode also feels like it has all sorts of filler due to the show’s 90-minute format. For instance, a scene where Max, who rides a bike instead of a car to crime scenes, is pushed aside by someone driving a Ford Mustang, lasts far longer than it needs to. There are other scenes like that, that feel like they could have been cut down without any loss of dramatic momentum. Even the stuff about Max’s personal life feel less than satisfying.
Still, this show has established itself as one that’s as much about how Max relates to his work colleagues as well as Astrid and his family members, and at this point, that formula is a comfortable safe haven for the show’s fans if the mystery in an episode is less than satisfying.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: For reasons that only make sense because of casting, Max decides to put a pause on things with Roz, and tells her as she and her son tend to their plot. We then see him walking out, in a similar shot to what we saw when Roz was walking in at the beginning of the episode.
Sleeper Star: We are Alex Kingston stans, so anytime she shows up on some show, we like watching her. Even here, where she plays an opinionated American diplomat. By the way, the reason why her playing American is strange is that on the American show she’s best known for, ER, her character was a Brit.
Most Pilot-y Line: Max forgets about his internet date, but after the woman calls him and he scrambles off his houseboat to go, we don’t see the uncomfortable date that results from it.
Our Call: STREAM IT. As we said, The Chelsea Detective is in a comfort zone with its regular characters. But the strange, somewhat confusing mystery that kicks off the third season, plus the strange use of Kingston, makes us scratch our heads.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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