Following on from last week’s Season 5 opener, we return to Saint Marie where the retiring Governer of the island is maliciously poisoned at her own leaving party with cyanide, with the only person to have been in contact with her is the Commissioner himself.
“I don’t suppose you know what Governer Bamber was drinking?” Humphrey asks the Commissioner (Don Warrington). “Two glasses of champagne…from this bottle. I served her.”
Although he’s been a consistent presence in the show since it began, it was great to see Warrington’s sharp tongued Commissioner take centre stage. Having him in the middle of the mystery was interesting, as were the awkward comedy moments it created between him and Kris Marshall’s Humphrey. It would be nice to see more of this in future episodes.
Despite a slow start, it is a neatly packed script. The main mystery bleeds out into both a stereotypical potential crime of passion subplot, but also a more interesting and inventive land ownership storyline. This allows regulars Danny John-Jules and Tobi Bakare something to do, flexing their comic muscle. Death in Paradise is always at its best when it shares the responsibility around the main cast, which isn’t always the case. Here it does a better job at balancing everything out.
“Negligible fatalities.”
Once again, a key point of success is the casting. Lucy Cohu, as Governer Bamber, has a short but effective role while Charlotte Hope, Adetomiwa Edun and the always reliable Nigel Lindsay breathe life, doubt and trouble into their respective characters.
The guilt of Ellery (Edun) and his subsequent exposure as the Governor’s murderer is darkly poetic and accompanied by a wonderful, evocative score. However, despite the odd twist to the plot, I really did see this one coming and it’s a sign that after 30 or so stories perhaps Death in Paradise has run out of its more original concepts.
Despite the odd duff moment, Death in Paradise still remains necessary viewing to beat those January blues. Next time though, a slightly less obvious chain of events and complex motive for the main suspect might just sway it more towards being a stronger episode.
Aired at 9pm on Thursday 14 January 2016 on BBC One.
> Buy the complete Season 1-5 boxset on Amazon.
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