Death in Paradise (TV series)

Death in Paradise
Genre	Crime, Comedy-Drama
Created by	Robert Thorogood
Starring	Ben Miller (Series 1-3) Sara Martins (Series 1-4) Danny John-Jules (Series 1-) Gary Carr (Series 1-3) Élizabeth Bourgine (Series 1-) Don Warrington (Series 1-) Kris Marshall (Series 3-) Joséphine Jobert (Series 4-) Tobi Bakare (Series 4-)
Composer(s)	Magnus Fiennes
Country of origin	United Kingdom France
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	5
No. of episodes	40 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Tony Jordan Klaus Zimmermann Belinda Campbell
Producer(s)	Matthew Bird Tim Key Tim Bradley
Location(s)	Guadeloupe (France)
Running time	60 minutes
Production company(s)	Red Planet Pictures and Atlantique Production, in association with Kudos for the BBC and France Télévisions
Release
Original network	BBC One (U.K.), France 2 (France), PBS (U.S.)
Original release	25 October 2011 (2011-10-25) – present
External links
BBC Death in Paradise

Death in Paradise is a British-French lighthearted crime comedy drama television series created by Robert Thorogood, initially starring Ben Miller and Sara Martins and later starring Kris Marshall and Joséphine Jobert. Danny John-Jules also stars and is the only cast member that has been present throughout the series. The programme is a joint UK and French production filmed on the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom and France 2 in France. Death in Paradise has enjoyed high ratings,^[1] leading to repeated renewals.^[2] A sixth series has been commissioned for broadcast in 2017.

Synopsis

British detective Richard Poole (Ben Miller) is assigned to investigate a murder on the fictional paradise island of Saint Marie in the Caribbean.^[3] After he successfully finds the murderer, he is reluctantly required by his supervisors to stay on as the detective inspector (DI) of the island, solving new cases as they appear, and being the object of many fish-out-of-water jokes.^[4] At the start of Series 3, Poole is killed and maladroit London detective Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall) arrives to investigate the death of his strait-laced predecessor. He then stays in the job as chief investigator on the island. The British detectives work alongside the local Saint Marie police team to track down murderers.

Format

While Death in Paradise has continued to be in the top three most popular programmes on British television, critics have called the crime drama "unremarkable" and "...an undemanding detective show, with nice Caribbean scenery." ^[5] The show is known for its formulaic approach to its plots. Each episode is roughly the same in both style and narrative structure. Each episode begins with a pre-credits sequence showing the events leading up to a murder, and often the discovery of the body afterwards; this sequence also serves to introduce that particular episode's guest characters. The police force of Saint Marie are subsequently informed of the murder, preliminary investigations and interviews take place to establish the suspects and photographs of the suspects and crime scene are placed on the whiteboard at police headquarters. As the episode develops, more inquiries take place concerning the suspects, including background and financial checks. Often towards the end, the lead DI will have a moment of realisation, perhaps brought on by something that someone says or does or by some occurrence. In this moment, the how, why, and who of the murder are comprehended by the DI, but are not revealed to the audience. The suspects are then all gathered together and the DI talks through the evidence; often, flashbacks are used to show what happened. The murderer and the motive are revealed in the denouement of the episode. Normally, each episode ends with a comedic scene or a celebratory trip by the police force to Catherine's bar. The final episode of each season has included a subplot wherein the lead DI is tempted to return to the UK by the prospect of a job offer or personal relationship, but in the end, he decides to remain on the island.

Setting

Saint Marie

Death in Paradise is set on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie, described in Episode 3.3 as a "pretty island" that is "situated in the Eastern Caribbean Sea" and "one-tenth the size of its north-west neighbour Guadeloupe"; this would make Saint Marie about 63 square miles (160 km²) in size. The location and name of the island suggest that it is based on the real-world island of Marie-Galante, which has a matching size and location, although the real-life Marie-Galante is politically affiliated with Guadeloupe and not independent of it. In the TV show, the fictional Saint Marie island has a volcano, rainforest, sugar plantations, a fishing harbour, an airport, a university, a convent, approximately 100 public beaches and a Crown Court. It also has its own newspaper, The Saint Marie Times. Honoré, the main town, has a leisure/commercial marina, market, bars, and restaurants as well as the police station. (Previously, BBC used the name Honoré in its adaptation of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple book A Caribbean Mystery, which was set on the fictional island of St. Honoré.) The island is a British Overseas Territory, but about 30 percent of its people are of French culture, with the language still widely spoken. Its main economic ties are to Guadeloupe, the UK, and France. The island's main religions are Catholicism and Vodou, with several Vodou religious festivals.

Other locations

Episode 3.7 is largely set on an islet just off Saint Marie; it is privately owned and relatively small. This episode was actually filmed on the island of Kahouanne, around 1.2 miles (1.9 km) off the north-west coast of Guadeloupe where the series is normally filmed. It can often be seen in the background from a beach on Saint Marie.

Characters

Cast

Main cast

The original team: Left-to-right: Sara Martins, Danny John-Jules, Gary Carr and Ben Miller

Recurring cast

Episodes

Production

Deshaies' church is right next to the fictional "Honoré police station".

The series has been filmed on the French island of Guadeloupe in the Lesser Antilles, mainly in the commune of Deshaies (which doubles for the fictional town of Honoré on the fictional island of Saint Marie), with the help of the Bureau d’accueil des tournages de la Région Guadeloupe.^[8] Miller left the series at the start of series 3, as he believed he was spending too much time away from his family; his wife was unable to join him on the island during production. However, Marshall's family joined him on the island during the six-month shoots and his daughter has enrolled at a local school. The site of the police station is filmed in a church hall.

Reception

Viewing figures

Regarding ratings, the series has gained popularity with every new series. The first series averaged around 5 million viewers, the second around 7 million and the third and fourth around 8 million each. Series 1 began with a premiere that received final viewing figures of just over 6 million, outperforming ITV’s celebrity reality series 71 Degrees North.^[9] The rest of the first series performed well, with 5-6 million viewers every episode. Series 2 started with just over 8 million viewers^[10] and a 28.8% share of the audience for the 9:00-10:00pm time slot.^[11] This was up by 1.3 million viewers and 5% audience share from the opening of the previous series and was, up to that time, the highest-rated episode of the drama on BBC television. Series 2 enjoyed consistently high ratings, with overnight figures for the first four episodes all passing the six-million figure and the fifth only slightly missing out with an overnight rating of 5.97, which was still the highest-rated broadcast program for the time slot with an audience share of 25.8%.^[12] Series 3 began with 8.69 million, at that time the most-watched episode of the program so far. The rest of the series was, on average, the most watched to date, with consolidated figures of over 8 million for every episode. Episode 5 later surpassed the viewing figures for the premiere, receiving a consolidated figure of 8.84 million. Series 4 premiered with an overnight rating of 6.9 million, the same as the premiere of series 2. However, consolidated figures showed that it was in fact the most-watched episode of the programme to date, with 8.92 million tuning in, and it was the second most-watched program of the week in the UK.^[13] Later the same series, episodes 4 and 7 both surpassed 7 million viewers in overnight figures, the first episodes to do so. Episode 7 also was the first episode to surpass 9 million in consolidated figures. However, figures for the finale took a significant downturn, receiving 8.31 million viewers; it lost 800,000 viewers from the previous episode, became the least-watched episode of the series and had fewer viewers than the previous series finale.

Critical response

The series has received mixed reviews from critics. The first series was praised for its refreshing style and setting. Marshall's addition to the cast at the start of series 3 was particularly well received, with Rebecca Smith of The Daily Telegraph citing Marshall as a "winning addition" to the cast.^[14] The series 4 premiere was described as "a little piece of escapism" and was generally praised. Mark Monahan of The Daily Telegraph criticized the laid-back tone of the series, calling it too methodical with nothing unique about it besides the setting.^[15]

Awards

Red Planet Pictures were nominated and won the "Diversity in a Drama Production Award" for Death In Paradise. Sara Martins, Danny John-Jules, Don Warrington and Tobi Bakare collected the award at a ceremony supported by the BBC and ITV that took place on 15 February 2015.^[16]

DVD release

Broadcast

In the U.K., all series were shown on BBC One. The first series was broadcast in late 2011. The second, third, fourth and fifth series were broadcast in early 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively; all series were shown in a 9:00-10:00pm slot.^{[lower-alpha 1]} In the U.S., many, but not all, member stations of PBS broadcast Death In Paradise. Series 1 and 2 were broadcast in the San Francisco Bay Area on KQED Mystery Night in 2013.^[22] Series 1 aired in January and February 2013 and series 2 aired in April and May 2013. In the New England area, WGBH-TV started airing Series 1 and 2 in 2013. Other PBS stations that air the program as of 2016 include WPBA, WLIW, WTTW, KAET, KUAT and WNED, among others. All episodes of seasons 1-4 are available on Netflix for online streaming. In Australia, recent series have aired nationally on Foxtel within a few hours of their UK release. Series 1-3 were broadcast on ABC One a few months behind original broadcast in the U.K. Generally, this was shown in a 7:30pm Saturday timeslot. In Canada, all series have been broadcast on BBC Canada Thursdays at 9:00pm. The last two seasons have been shown about a month after the BBC One showing.

Music

Theme music

The theme music is an instrumental version of a Jamaican song from the 1960s, "You're Wondering Now," written by Coxsone Dodd, originally recorded by Andy & Joey in Jamaica. It was later made famous by The Skatalites and in Europe by ska band The Specials and later still by Amy Winehouse as featured on some editions of the deluxe version of her album Back to Black. In the first episode of the third series, the cover version recorded by The Skatalites in 1994 is played at the bar. It appeared on the official Death in Paradise soundtrack, released in January 2015, alongside other music from all 4 series. In the French version, the opening song is "Sunday Shining" by Finley Quaye ("As the morning gathers a rainbow, I want you to know y'all, That I'm a rainbow with you.")

Soundtrack

In January 2015, an official soundtrack compiling 26 songs from the first 4 series of the show was released by the BBC. It contains original music for Death in Paradise and already extant tunes.

Novels

The creator of the show, Robert Thorogood, signed a three -book deal to write Death in Paradise novels featuring the original characters (consisting of D.I. Richard Poole, D.S. Camille Bordey, Officer Dwayne Myers, Sergeant Fidel Best and Comm. Selwyn Patterson.) The first of these, A Meditation on Murder (A Death in Paradise novel),^[23] was published in January 2015. Early reviews were generally favourable, with The Daily Express in particular being complimentary, giving it four stars.^[24] The second book was released in 2016 with the title 'The Killing of Polly Carter'.

Notes

References

• All ratings are sourced from the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB).

External links

• Death in Paradise at BBC Programmes
• Death in Paradise at the Internet Movie Database