KATHRYN FLETT'S My TV week: It's Midsomer Murders in Manhattan By Kathryn Flett For Weekend Magazine Published: 22:31 BST, 26 July 2024 | Updated: 22:31 BST, 26 July 2024 e-mail View comments ELSBETH Tuesdays, SKY Witness/Now Rating: If you were a fan of The Good Wife (2009-2016, RIP) or its spin-off The Good Fight (2017-2022, started strongly, deteriorated dramatically and therefore not missed quite so much, at least by me) then you will, I’m sure, remember the occasional appearances of Elsbeth Tascioni (Carrie Preston). She was the quirky, chaotic, amusingly socially inept lawyer with the idiosyncratic dress sense and razor-sharp mind who probably should have been a detective. Now given her own spin-off by TGW/TGF creators/writers, husband-and-wife team Robert and Michelle King, Elsbeth has been relocated from Chicago to New York, ostensibly to investigate the New York Police Department (NYPD) after some controversial arrests.
As she shadows their work, Elsbeth simultaneously deploys her innate detective skills and starts solving crimes. A so-called ‘howcatchem’, the inverted detective story format means we know all along who the murderer is; the fun is in watching Elsbeth work it out. Elsbeth (pictured), who first appeared in The Good Wife which ran from 2009-2016, has been given her own spin-off show set in New York Ring any bells? Yup, the blueprint is Columbo, while the genre’s most recent incarnation was Sky’s Poker Face, in which Natasha Lyonne played a quirky, chaotic, amusingly socially inept casino waitress with an idiosyncratic dress sense and a near-psychic ability to spot liars.
Like Poker Face, Elsbeth is borderline cartoonish and often played for laughs, but it’s less edgy and cool. Both ‘howcatchems’ are effectively the USA’s version of ‘cosy crime ’; a Midsomer-in-Manhattan, if you will. The first episode introduced an exaggerated (at least to those of us who already ‘know’ her) version of the affectedly naive Elsbeth, playing a gauche tourist in the Big Apple and disarming the villain, Alex (Stephen Moyer) – and it’s no spoiler to say that he was the token Brit, because the English are always the baddies in US dramas.
The dialogue crackled. ‘You weren’t convinced by my acting?’ acting coach Alex asked Elsbeth when she nailed him as the murderer of a student with whom he’d been having an affair. ‘Oh no, I was.
People in life don’t act.’ I dived straight into the second episode. Having already established the regular characters (including Wendell Pierce as NYPD Captain Wagner and Carra Patterson as savvy cop Kaya Blanke) this was more fun, involving a high-end Manhattan real estate battle.
Would they get Oprah – a potential apartment purchaser – to phone in a line or two? UK writer Kathryn Flett (pictured) gave Elsbeth a four-star rating Meanwhile, Carrie Preston is the definition of a successfully jobbing actor (she popped up recently in the hit movie The Holdovers) who eventually finds the character of a lifetime. She won an Outstanding Guest Actress Emmy as Elsbeth in The Good Wife way back in 2013, so I’m delighted she’s been reactivated by the Kings – and if the show format is comparatively lightweight (TGW/TGF happily embraced ‘big issues’) then that’s also fine by me. The world is sufficiently big-issue-laden right now that a soothing balm of wittily and effortlessly solved primetime crime is, arguably, a perfect slice of summer escapism.
Half an hour of fabulously funny TV PIGLETS Saturdays, ITV1 Rating: After Paul is ‘dropped off’ by his family in unusually dramatic style, he and the rest of the newest raw recruits are given an ‘inspiring’ pep talk by one of the senior officers at Norbourne Police Training College. ‘You are each about to become a cog in a powerful blue machine,’ explains Superintendent Bob Weekes (Mark Heap), ‘and I am the oil about to be applied to you. And my oil will lubricate you into action, just as I myself was.
..’ Police comedy Piglets, starring Sarah Parish as Superintendent Julie Spry (fourth from right) and Mark Heap as Superintendent Bob Weekes, is 30 minutes of hilarious TV ‘OK, intro over! Let’s crack on, shall we!’ interjects Superintendent Julie Spry (an all-but-unrecognisable Sarah Parish).
And so we’re hurtled into a comedic world in which fans, like me, of Noughties hits Green Wing and Smack The Pony will instinctively feel right at home. With an 11-strong writing team made up of both veterans from those two shows and young blood, there’s not a moment on-screen when Piglets isn’t either setting up or actively delivering a great gag. The result is 30 minutes of fabulously funny telly – with its young cast owning every pacy second.
And – sorry – for me the fact that the title was criticised by the Police Federation arguably makes it even funnier. Jude Bellingham (pictured) features in Netflix's LaLiga: All Access Another win for Spain..
. Netflix waited just two days after the Euros final before dropping the docuseries LaLiga: All Access. But if that was too soon for you to want to follow the ups and downs of the 2023-24 season in Spain’s top league, maybe you can ease yourself in now? Jude Bellingham is far from the only superstar to have lost in the Euros but feature here, and aside from some irritating voiceovers (and that Spanish victory), it’s gripping stuff.
For a chance to win £50, send us your views on these and any other shows to [email protected] Sarah Parish ITV Jude Bellingham Netflix Share or comment on this article: KATHRYN FLETT'S My TV week: It's Midsomer Murders in Manhattan e-mail.
