SkyVlog

It’s rare there isn’t something new starting off, or something interesting and original happening, on television. But last night was one of those barren nights. So here’s something not very interesting or original coming to an end, the final episode of the current (fourth) series of Death in Paradise (BBC1).

It has been a while since I dropped into the Caribbean Island of Saint Marie, and I’m sad to see that DS Camille Bordey (Sara Martins) is no longer around. But a big bonjour to DS Florence Cassell (Josephine Jobert), whose role seems to be the same – to be beautiful and chic and neat and French in order to make DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall) look even more shambolic and bumblingly British. And, along with the pretty scenery, to be a welcome distraction from the mundanity of the drama she’s in.

DI Goodman is in a frightful flap, his father is coming to visit, he’s tidying up the beach shack … oops, but he knocks over a vase of bird of paradise flowers by swinging his blue linen jacket a little over-enthusiastically. He was probably trying to impress DS Florence, who he’s clearly in love with (as he was with DS Camille) though he doesn’t even realise it himself. She gives him a look, the same kind of look that Camille used to give him, a look that says oh you’re a fool, but rather an endearing one; a bumbly English kind of fool.

They leave for the courthouse, to put a murderer behind bars; it is, says Florence, an “oopern an’ sheurrrt case”. Bet it isn’t. There’s a little light staircase-based humour: the courthouse has an imperial one, appropriately. DS Flo-Ca and DI Hum-Goo set off upwards separately, then meet unexpectedly (I expected it!), at the top, Hahaha!

And then, oops, here’s a body! It’s belongs to the prisoner, shot in his cell, but how did the murderer get in, and then out, when the door – all the doors in fact – were locked? And is that what Florence meant be an “oopern an’ sheurrrt case”?

You know how it goes, even if you didn’t see it, because they’re all the same, exactly the same. It seems to be an impossible conundrum, Humphrey’s getting – and going – nowhere; the pressure mounts, as the patience of Commissioner Selwyn Patterson (Don Warrington) begins to wane; there’s additional stress for Humph here, with his overbearing emotionless father (a different kind of English stereotype) in town; the bickering of the local staff, Officer Dwayne and Officer JP, provides the light – very light – relief. Ooh, and here’s Honeysuckle Weeks, posh Samantha in Foyle’s War, playing a cockney … That’s ridiculous, might as well get Hugh Grant to play a Yardie …

Then the eureka moment for Humphrey, ants – ants! – this time, and suddenly it’s all clear. Time to gather everyone for a triumphant denouement – even more triumphant than usual in this one because disappointed dad is in attendance, to be proved wrong about the worthlessness of his son. He – now undisappointed dad – goes home to Blighty, Humph can relax, change into a holiday shirt, drink and dance into the warm Saint Marie Night …

There’s nothing really wrong with Death in Paradise, it’s a pleasant enough to way to spend an hour of your time. But nor is there anything interesting about it. It’s not even a tiny bit challenging, or funny (unless you find imperial staircases, and knocking over flowers, and comedy lizards funny).

It’s like the television equivalent of having a holiday timeshare, in the Caribbean naturally. You go, every year, because it’s easy, and because … well, it’s there, and you know exactly what to expect, and you don’t know where else to go. Every holiday is the same, they all merge into one. When you get there, there’s not much to do, so you roll up your trousers and take your sugary cocktail down to the beach and stand in the shallows, letting tiny warm wavelets lap at your toes. It’s nice, familiar, comforting, but maybe you wish you were brave enough to surf, or to have holiday romance … Maybe next year. At least the scenery is nice, yes, DS Florence, I do mean you … God. This holiday, and this programme, has turned me into an old lechy pervert. Well, there’s nothing else to do or be.

I’m cancelling the timeshare (if the BBC doesn’t, which they won’t because DiP does incredibly well, ratings-wise). Count me out next year though, I’ll be going to the jungle, with Bear Grylls.

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