So the sun has set on the island of Saint-Marie once again, meaning that it must be time for my annual review of the latest series of Death In Paradise. I gather that Ralf Little has been annoyed at people who refer to it as a “guilty pleasure”, rather than as a good show. Rest assured, Ralf, there’s nothing guilty about the pleasure that I take from watching the show. There’s very little that I watch “live” on TV these days – basically Death In Paradise, Doctor Who and Gladiators. And I don’t even call that last one a guilty pleasure…

I’ve stopped actually keeping score, but before we go episode by episode, a warning. I’m not going to discuss spoilers for the whodunnits but there’s no way I can fail to mention the change in personnel. But I’ll keep that until the end. Even with all that stuff, it’ll be easier to review than the last series without spoiling you-know-what.

Christmas Special

Oh bugger, can’t remember much about this one. [Jumps to internet] Oh yes, a woman gets a mysterious invitation to visit a businessman on the island and vanishes without trace at the same time that he falls to his death. Much more like a normal DIP episode than previous Christmas ones, but utilises a possibly over-used trick coupled with a fairly bland resolution to the vanishing of the guest. Having said that, it kept me hooked over the extended run time though.

Episode One

I loved the coverage of the first part of this series that described this episode as the one where Commissioner Patterson gets assassinated and then mentions his role in a later episode in the same sentence. But yes, Patterson gets shot, everyone is fairly sure who did it (including the, ahem, assassin) and as it’s the 100^th episode, Sean Maguire who was in the first episode shows up. I think there’s a cheat here in what we see, but I’ll be honest, I thought this was a clever one, playing well with our expectations.

Episode Two

At an old folks home, Hayley Mills leaves a bingo game to sit by the nearby pond and is found stabbed. But anyone with a hint of a motive were still playing bingo… Another good one, but a very obvious killer – a little too similar to a Humphrey episode, both of which draw heavily on a John Dickson Carr classic.

Episode Three

A celebrity chef is poisoned after tasting the dishes at a cooking competition. But as the contestants all ate their food as well, how was he poisoned? A really good one this – I clicked the how just in time – but taking on more serious themes and doing them, I think, pretty well.

Episode Four

An expert in stealing electricity for his illegal crypto-farming enterprise is found electrocuted at the substation, because the expert had, apparently, forgotten to put his insulating gloves on? I was less impressed by this one, the killer seemed to stand out to me and the method of obfuscating… something seemed to come out of nowhere.

Episode Five

Not a desperately interesting episode at all, much more of a “how” than “who”. And yet another go at… a certain misdirection that I’ll talk about in a bit.

Episode Six

A wheelchair bound guest goes down two floors in a lift without stopping – except that when the lift opens, she’s got a knife sticking out of her. Clever, although one aspect of the solution is pretty obvious.

Episode Seven

An old school-friend of four fairly unbearable individuals dies at the hotel that they were all staying at, drowning in the swimming pool. But they were all eating breakfast together when it happened.

Episode Eight

Neville gets on a flight from Saint-Marie, woozy from anti-histamine and cocktails, and dozes off. When the plane lands, one of the two other passengers has vanished. Luckily Commissioner Patterson knows where he is – shot to death on an island back on Saint-Marie. A really interesting premise but a fairly prosaic solution.

So let’s address a plot point that seems to be used a lot this series. Instead of the impossible crime of a locked room – only episode six has this – there are too many episodes where the problem is “no one was near the crime” and the solution depends on obscuring when the crime took place. Four episodes (at least) did this as the central problem this series and the only one that did it well was episode seven, as the method was clever and original (and well-clued). Hopefully we can cut down on that next series? The best episodes for me were episodes one, two (despite the re-used method), three, six and seven. There were a couple – five and eight – where it seemed as if they wanted to play a little bit with the structure and neither of the mysteries really worked for me. Or maybe the writers were distracted by the upcoming leaving parties.

SPOILER TIME

Because those episodes marked the departure of regular characters, so let’s deal with the most important first – Marlon.

I’m only half-kidding here – Tahj Miles was an absolute joy as Marlon, and his leaving seemed to come out of nowhere. I guess they knew it was coming from the start of the series, as there were no real attempts to build on him kissing Naomi in the Christmas episode, but it felt very sudden when it happened. Have we heard of his genius sister before? Did we know he lived with his mother? It made sense to bring back Danny John-Jules as Dwayne for the last few episodes, and I guess he’ll be around next series as they never really addressed the story behind him coming back – we know his father wants to spend his last days on Saint-Marie but this was never expanded on, and Dwayne seems to be back to his usual self. I would have liked to have seen a little more with him and Darlene too, given their history, but I guess priorities were elsewhere in the final two episodes.

And as well as Marlon, it looks like it’s farewell to Ralf Little as Floville sailed off into the sunset together. Hands down he has been my favourite of the sleuths on the show – if you’re interested, it goes Neville – Humphrey (season 4 onwards) – Richard – Humphrey (season 3) – whatever Ardal O’Hanlon’s character was called. Sorry Ardal, not your fault, but they struggled to find much for your character to do bar solve crimes. Oh, and Humphrey (season 3) is the version of Humphrey is the one whose sole character trait is being clumsy.

But Neville will be missed greatly, and it will be very interesting to see how they fill his shoes. Just to save you some time googling, any news story at the moment that says “Ralf Little’s replacement revealed” is simply listing odds, presumably compiled by morons as they are citing Simon Bird as the favourite, presumably as he’s a bit like Ralf Little… My gut feeling is that it’s time for a female doctor detective – Jessica Hynes, anybody?

A quick mention for the cast who didn’t leave. Don Warrington (now second billed and quite right too) is as godlike as ever, as is Elizabeth Bourgine. Shantol Jackson as Naomi and Ginny Holder as Darlene really need more to do – the plot of Marlon helping Naomi bring herself out of herself was really good, and let’s hope this continues somehow. Similarly, the “team” of Darlene and Dwayne has legs, especially as Darlene can wrap him round her finger.

So, it’s time to hibernate for another ten months – oh, nine, there’s going to be another Christmas special – until we can get back into the sunshine again…