Detectors special
Valuation: ****
Death In Paradise Christmas Special
Valuation: **
The problem with Christmas is that it all comes at once. All these gifts and food stuffed in one mammoth feast.
Long after you’ve had enough, when you’d much rather spread it out a little, you need to keep going. And that goes for television. also.
On the basis that more is better, Christmas TV specials are always too long. On the day itself, Santa provided an hour and a half of Call The Midwife, another 90 minutes of Doc Martin and a full hour of EastEnders – which is really against the natural order.
The excess continued with Detectorists (BBC2), writer-director Mackenzie Crook’s hymn to the English countryside. This charming portrait of an awkward male friendship was perfect as a series of half-hour episodes, but the main run ended five years ago.
Crook and Toby Jones star as Andy and Lance, two middle-aged history buffs whose favorite pastime is pottering around a fallow field with metal detectors in search of buried treasure
In half-hour doses, I could watch Detectorists forever. Scattered throughout the script like shards of pottery are clever little jokes waiting to be found
The prospect of a new miniseries spread out over three weeks would have been a real splash of festive joy. Instead, the whole story was condensed into a single 75-minute special, which was just too much of a good thing.
Detectorists has always been one of those shows that, if you’ve never seen it, doesn’t sound like much. Crook and Toby Jones star as Andy and Lance, two middle-aged history buffs whose favorite pastime is pottering around a fallow field with metal detectors in search of buried treasure.
Andy is a gentle soul married to a perpetually angry school teacher (Rachael Stirling).
Lance is a bachelor, fussy and a bit pompous, with some surprising depths that he keeps well hidden. The two are happiest sitting under a tree exchanging their notes on the last round of the University Challenge, but life’s uncomfortably emotional dealings keep getting in the way.
In half-hour doses, I could watch Detectorists forever. Scattered throughout the script like shards of pottery are clever little jokes waiting to be found.
As Lance and his daughter Toni (Rebecca Callard) peered into a briefcase filled with sacred gold, their faces lit up like gangsters John Travolta and Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction.
And when the boys decided to bring their latest find to the attention of archaeologists, Lance remarked, “The whole story under Bodie and Doyle” – slang rhyming for earth.
“We should call in the experts,” Andy agreed. You have to be of a certain age to understand this joke. The story was interspersed with beautiful insights into animals, insects and flowers – and topped it off with a glimpse of biblical history (unless it was just a daydream by Lance and Andy).
Death In Paradise (BBC1) made the same mistake, stretching its perfect hour-long format by 30 minutes and losing much of its fun and excitement in the process
Death In Paradise (BBC1) made the same mistake, stretching its perfect hour-long format by 30 minutes and losing much of its fun and excitement in the process. These Caribbean mysteries rely on momentum to propel us forward. The plans are so silly, the murder mechanisms so improbable, that it’s not safe to stop and think about them.
As long as there’s another twist or slapstick that has Detective Neville (Ralf Little) falling over his own feet, we’re going to be swept up. But this story about a little boy who went off on Christmas Eve in search of Santa and disappeared started going in circles with repetitive flashbacks.
With his black-painted hair, Les Dennis was an unrecognizable clairvoyant charlatan, and the best character – callous True Crime podcaster Siobhan McSweeney – was canceled far too soon.
And thanks to sweeping changes at the police station, Don Warrington’s grumpy detective is the only familiar face left. Death In Paradise seems to be on its last legs.