The Good Ship Murder has docked on Channel 5 for the next eight Friday nights, and it’s the birth of a love child between Death in Paradise, Eldorado, and The Cruise – here’s our review!
Throw in a whole load of cheese, a pleasing backdrop, and a cast of mostly soap faves, and you’re beginning to get the picture. It’s camp, it’s sunny, and it’s an easy watch for a Friday night in front of the TV with some heavily-dosed cocktails.
Truth is, you’ll either love it or you’ll hate it, and here’s why in ED!‘s review.
***Warning: spoilers from episode 1 of The Good Ship Murder ahead***
The Good Ship Murder on Channel 5 review
New eight-part drama The Good Ship Murder is set aboard a luxury cruise liner touring everyone’s favourite Mediterranean holiday hotspots. Like Death in Paradise, White Lines, and The Mallorca Files, the views are good, the whiff of mojitos is strong, and the plot line isn’t too taxing.
Actually, let’s get this out of the way, the series isn’t going to win any BAFTAs. It’s a thriller by numbers, but that will appeal to those viewers who are fed up of complicated crime dramas like Payback, and Bloodlands. This fits very happily into the mould of cosy crime drama. Think Shakespeare and Hathaway, The Madame Blanc Mysteries, and Queens of Mystery.
Shayne Ward stars as the cruise ship’s new cabaret singer, Jack Grayling. And it’s his first major role on TV since 2018, when he last played Aidan Connor in Coronation Street. And he also gets to sing, so it’s a win/win for The X Factor superstar Shayne!
Jack has “a girl in every port” until he meets newly-promoted First Officer, Kate Woods, at the start of the cruise. And, Corrie fans had every reason to get excited, as Shayne reunited with his soap co-star Catherine Tyldesley, who plays Kate. At first, she seems like the ice queen with a rod up her [bleep], but Jack’s charms slowly work their magic on her.
So here begins another Mulder and Scully, Ross and Rachel, Tim and Dawn will-they-won’t-they relationship… Well if the format ain’t broke…
The Good Ship Murder doesn’t break any moulds, but it ticks quite a few boxes. There’s the winning combination of a detective duo. Then there’s a visually attractive setting, and a murder mystery every week. It’s escapist fun, and not pretending to be anything else.
Questions we have after watching episode 1
In episode 1 of The Good Ship Murder (Friday, October 13, 2023), a passenger was found murdered in their first port of call. Which meant that Kate’s dream of her own command was thrown into jeopardy…
She teamed up with Jack to solve the case. Of course he’s not just any cruise ship entertainer, he’s a former policeman who worked serious crimes… Now how is that for a coincidence! As the episodes go on, we hope the story unravels as to why Jack quit the force.
During their investigations, the duo discovered that newlywed Brenda (former Emmerdale star Charlie Hardwick) had a history of husbands dying in mysterious circumstances. They find out that Brenda had hired the ship’s former crew mate Pascal to murder her second husband. Successfully married again, with a new life insurance in place, she once again hired him to kill her new husband. However, hired assassin Pascal got the wrong man and killed private investigator Nathan Grealish. Nathan was on the ship looking into Brenda and her history of missing husbands.
Luckily, Jack and Kate worked it out just in time to save Brenda’s new husband from a watery grave (in a hot tub).
That’s a lot of dead bodies onboard one cruise ship!
Each of the eight episodes is a separate murder mystery, each set against the backdrop of a different stunning coastal destination where the ship has dropped anchor.
That’s a lot of dead bodies onboard one cruise ship! How the series keeps up the pace without veering into the preposterous remains to be seen with episode 2 next week (Friday, October 20, 2023).
Like Death in Paradise, Midsomer Murders, and McDonald & Dodds, each episode welcomes a new cast of guest characters, who all become embroiled in the mystery.
And our favourite character of all has to be Claire Sweeney‘s brassy and bitchy Beverley Carnell, who doesn’t suffer fools. You’d want her on your side in a bar brawl. And we predict there’ll be one at some point!
Read more: Catherine Tyldesley’s very candid confession about her weight gain
The Good Ship Murder continues on Fridays at 9pm on Channel 5.
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