It’s like trying to watch Poirot but with eight Poirots, and sometimes the useless Poirots actively get in the way of the better Poirots doing their Poiroting, all while a team of retired police officers get genuinely angry at Poirot for how off the rails Poirot’s investigation is going. Four teams of two have been invited on to the island to try to solve the murder, which they do while being constantly ranked and judged by real-world homicide detectives observing their work (they don’t know who did it, either). But here’s how Murder Island differs from the norm: this is part detective procedural that you get the satisfaction of solving, and part reality show. I’m sure you know how detective dramas go by now: look around the room, identify a couple of subtle clues that will come to fruition later, get distracted by the red herring front and centre, resist the impulse to blame the first person you meet. We see homicide as something to be a smart-arse about.
We like to point at the screen and say: “I knew she was being shifty!” We like to solve murder like a jigsaw puzzle. No, detective, the reason we watch these shows is because we like to think we solved the crime before the actor actually does solve it. Is it because we are intrigued about what can send an upstanding member of the community to the most depraved depths of humanity – taking another life, in a moment of passion or anger or fear – and wonder distantly what circumstances would take us to that very edge? A little bit, but not really. Why do we watch procedural murder investigations, detective? Is it because we rejoice in the blood and the gore? No, we rarely care about the killing itself. No one walks like that, do they? You only walk like that when you’ve just committed a murder. Ah, I should have mentioned: literally everyone on the island is being weird in a way that suggests they may be a murderer, so this isn’t going to be easy. Yes, detective, it’s been quite the scene: a woman who was new to the island has been murdered, so it’s difficult for any of the incredibly shifty locals to particularly care about the case because they are all strange island people.
The landlord is quite sinister and reluctant to talk about literally anything, but you really can’t argue with such an affordable room rate. Anyway, you can bunk down in a room above the island’s only pub. Your investigation will probably span a few days but haunt you for life.
#Crack go play along tv#
The only way in and out of Murder Island? By boat, of course, because we’re in Scotland, and on TV Scotland is legally bound to be portrayed as an outland with no infrastructure. I’m starting to think we should never have called it Murder Island if we didn’t want all this murdering going on, but we’re here now, aren’t we.