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Having watched every episode of every incarnation of Death in Paradise (and when I say watched I generally mean having it on in the background while I play online poker, but it's OK cos every episode is the same) I have been looking for a new series to watch when I have some TV time on my own. It has to be something that I like but that I know that Catie will have no interest in.
So formulaic detective drama is what I am looking for. But not Poker Face because that's actually good.
Having flirted with Hustle, which I didn't really get into, I have settled in to semi-ingest all twelve series of New Tricks. Which means I will eventually get the series with Nicholas Lyndhurst in them and be able to pretend his detective is from the past or future.
New Tricks is like Last of the Summer Wine for slightly more serious actors (though it's got a good dose of comedy in it). It's got everyone in it from the past, along with a smattering of actors who were current at the time of filming (the actor Kevin Eldon was in the one I saw today and I was very jealous as I always am of his amazing career) and a very strong central cast of Amanda Redman, James Bolam, Alun Armstrong and Dennis Waterman (at least for the first few series). It's almost too good to be my completely half-watched TV series, but luckily there is some broad comedy and a fair amount of formula and a really jarring theme song, sung of course by Dennis Waterman (and it's no "I could be so good for you") that doesn't really fit with the show and which they have to leave off when the subject matter gets too serious. "It's all right, it's OK, doesn't really matter if you're old and grey. It's all right, it's OK, listen to what I say." It's just a little bit cringy. And I love it.
The only way you could improve Death in Paradise is to write a jaunty theme tune that has to be sung by the lead detective.
"Life's a beach and then you die
We're drinking rum under a clear blue sky
Every week someone gets done in in an over complicated plot
And the lead actor keeps quitting cos it's much too hot.
There's always exactly three suspects with reason to kill
With elaborate schemes that require pluck, luck and skill
They should really just shoot their victim and then run away
But then the show would be over too quicker-lay
The views are all lovely, but murder's not nice
It's Death in Paradise, I wanna tell you, it's Death in Paradise."
Can you believe I just made that up as I went along? I can certainly believe that of New Tricks.
The hardest thing to process watching this show though is that Dennis Waterman is no longer with us. I am not sure if I missed the news of this death in 2022 or if I just blotted it out because it was too much to take in. But it doesn't feel like the Mary Tudor faced actor should be gone. He's Dennis Waterman. He lives forever. And if he did ever die there would surely be months of mourning. He's not the kind of person who could slip away and you missed it because you didn't watch the news that day.
He didn't even get to play the detective in Death in Paradise - and I would really love to have seen that. Could have put the cat amongst the pigeons.
Hopefully he faked his own death and is somewhere smoking fags and flirting with women who are much too young for him, but somehow it isn't creepy because he's Dennis fucking Waterman. Well it's a bit creepy, but it doesn't matter, because Dennis understood where the line was and only stepped on it and in New Tricks there's the correct degree of self-mockery.
Anyway I am sad to have lost Dennis and even sadder that I don't really believe that we've lost him, so have to relive the trauma every time I think about him. He was one of the greats and he could have been so good for me. But that ship, alas, has sailed.
