Only Murders in the Building

I wasn't sure whether the mystery this season was going to land, though I was enjoying the characters anyway, and then it very neatly came together. Top marks.

A star-studded season with some of the best intra-character writing so far, which just about makes up for a distinctly slower – and less interesting/more contrived – mystery. The red herrings weren't so much confusing as either too obvious or too quickly dispelled (they could have run with the ghost bit way longer), whilst some of the key plot points were a little too obvious. Who else worked out that Ben was yelling at a cookie immediately? Still, they did manage to keep the big whodunnit under their hat long enough, and throw just enough hints around to keep you guessing. Mix on top the usual stellar performances from the main cast, plus new characters cast with the likes of Paul Rudd and Meryl Streep (!) – and not forgetting Matthew Broderick's pseudo-cameo – and it's fair to say that the story and script can take a bit of a back seat to just let the talent shine.

Still, by murder three I'm getting a little tired of the mid-season break-up being repeated again, and you do have to start questioning how they're able to bounce from one murder to another without wondering a little more about it all. Some of the jokes are also wearing a little thin. Take the whole "dips" thing. In season one, he was a man who liked a good dip. In season three, it appears to be an accepted character trait that this is some form of eating disorder. I... I don't need that. Let the gag die, it's run its course. I also don't quite understand why they wrote Joy out so completely 🤷‍♀️

On top of which, an outright assassination attempt is an interesting direction to go in. It looked like they might have been heading for a fourth season in LA, which I wouldn't have hated – mix things up a little, why not? – but then u-turned on that idea by murdering Sazz? It'll be interesting to see where they go from here, but my hope is that if the plan is to just churn out murder mystery after murder mystery, Midsomer style, then let the Scooby gang just be a gang and end all the infighting? Please?