CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night’s TV: If they keep changing stars like oil in an engine, this could go for ever
Death In Paradise
Meet The Richardsons
Rating: 
So he’s staying, as we always knew he would. Even when his allergies cleared up and the sunburn faded, when his plane tickets arrived and he ran out of excuses, DI Neville Parker (Ralf Little) couldn’t bear to leave Saint Marie.
This series of Death In Paradise (BBC1) has managed the tricky transition from Ardal O’Hanlon’s laid-back DI Mooney to the twitching, neurotic, hypochondriac DI Parker, and done it as smoothly as a luxury hotel waves goodbye to one VIP customer while another checks in.
The show’s creators didn’t intend to have a rolling roster of stars but, now it has worked out that way, they have discovered that this might be the factor that makes Death In Paradise as long-lived as New Tricks.
This series of Death In Paradise has managed the tricky transition from Ardal O’Hanlon’s laid-back DI Mooney to Ralf Little’s twitching, neurotic, hypochondriac DI Parker (above)
Heck, if they can keep replacing detectives like changing the oil in an engine every two or three years, the show might go on for ever, or at least as long as Casualty — which is practically the same thing.
Think how many flustered, middle-aged men would be perfect for the role: Greg Davies, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Martin Clunes (how great he’d be, even for one season), Hugh Dennis, Stephen Mangan, Richard Ayoade . . .
Each new incarnation is pushing the writers to new flights of murderous invention. This time, Sting’s ex-wife Frances Tomelty played blind actress Olivia, who confessed to shooting her husband on the beach with a revolver.
DI Parker spotted an inconsistency with her story: she said she’d been 5 ft away from the victim when she pulled the trigger but the pathologist reckoned the shooter was 20 ft away. Ergo, Olivia couldn’t be the killer: she just didn’t know it, what with being blind.
Delightfully crackpot as the crime was, it did raise one question. Why do we never see the pathologist on Saint Marie? DI Parker produced a shatterproof plastic ruler to examine the bullet wound, but he didn’t dissect the body.
There’s a whole new series in that idea — Post-mortem In Paradise.
The biggest prize in television currently is to come up with a new idea for a comedy hit. Sitcom, sketches, reality show send-ups, anything is worth a try, as long as it’s not another panel game.
Film-maker Gary Sinyor, who had a surprise hit about 30 years ago with the indie movie Leon The Pig Farmer, demonstrates one original method with his situation comedy The Jewish Enquirer, which launches today on Amazon Prime.
I’ve seen a preview, and it highlights how unconventional comedy can dare to be on streaming video services. Starring Tim Downie as a reporter for a Jewish newspaper that no one reads, the show batters you with jokes so politically incorrect they leave you speechless.
This is the opposite of comedy by committee. It’s impossible to imagine BBC execs allowing this gag about whether gay firefighters inspire trust: ‘You’re in a motorway pile-up. Who would you most want coming towards you with the cutting gear: Bruce Willis or Graham Norton?’
By contrast, Jon Richardson’s new mockumentary feels as if every line has been subjected to five different laughter formulas, until all the spontaneity has been beaten out of it.
Meet The Richardsons (Dave) purports to be a portrait of Jon’s married life with fellow comic Lucy Beaumont. In fact, it’s a drearily laboured sitcom that tries to ape Lee Mack’s Not Going Out — and fails.
There’s even a bit-part for a veteran comic. Lee has Bobby Ball, Jon ropes in Bernie Clifton. Good to see that ostrich is still doing the business.