[Hitch]

Okay so, I know, I know, I'm always always Dora Doom and I don't like anything, I totally suck.

AND, worse, I've been way for a while so you have hopefully all forgotten all that but now, I'm gonna remind you.

I thought it might be a bit pallid, but in desperation, I tried BritBox's "Good Ship Murder," which has come thereto in the last week or so.

OY.

I mean...this is really quite brilliant, in a capitalistic sense. Whoever developed this had the bleeding inspired idea of mooching all those "Created by the Chamber of Commerce" shows, like the OG of them all, Death in Paradise, to the Mallorca Files to Mrs. Volpe and so on, set the scene on a cruise ship that runs 'round the Med, go to 5 or 7 or however many cities, and have the Murder-She-Wrote-Murder-of-the-Week happen and the hero solve it. Okay. From a selling it pitch, I think that's brilliant, I do. They probably got gobs of cash, tax breaks and all that, from the various cities, countries, municipalities and so forth like Lisbon. BRILL, no argument.

BUT OMG is the show BAD. I mean, BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD. It appears to be an Aussie production but when you look at a great little show like Darby and Joan and then look at this debacle, you wonder if you've time-traveled back 40-50 years and GSM is the Love Boat of the 2024's. Complete with ancient, need work to keep my SAG card cast and all that.

Some dude is cast as the Lounge Lizard singer-cum-detective-used-to-be-a-cop and god help us all, he closes out each episode singing. His singing voice is about as good as my spouse's and I'm NOT KIDDING. This ain't Freddie Mercury reincarnated. it's not even Freddie's Big toe, reincarnated.

The casting--not kidding here--is almost like some Aussie production crew ran around the continent, went to all the local playhouses and snatched up any affordable "wanna be a TV star" actor/actress that they could find and cast them for Episode X. Seriously. Scads of much much older acting, er, talent too--which is to be expected with the whole cruise ship thing, I guess. The woman who played the center of the mystery in the Lisbon episode should actually be barred from ever appearing on stage or TV or film or ? ever again. Her scene inside a church is painful to watch.

The mysteries are pretty insipid. In fact, the plots are; the casting is abysmal and the acting is...woeful. Watch the second epi, set in Lisbon and see if you don't agree.

I am actually surprised by it. I know, that sounds awfully naive, I get it, I do. But it's...it's so bad it's surprising that somehow it escaped into the wild. You just don't expect it anymore; even the made-for-Sci-Fi movies of the week, shows, etc., are all a lot better than this. Quality-wise, this is up there with the old original Space:1999 episodes or the like. And I would say that S:1999 was far better and far more creative for its time. Is it telling that I would rather see Lady Penelope, in TAG, than this?

There are also pesky naggy things, like the fact that none of the shoulder epaulets (ranks) seem to mean anything or matter. Lower ranks give orders to higher. Cruise directors--in other words, entertainment directors--appear to be giving orders to the actual crew, the working sailors which we all know ain't real. The cops in one city welcome this retired Brit cop as if it's old home week and promptly allow him to work on the murder with them (yeah, right). Of course, there's a love connection between the lounge lizard (male) and the brand-spanking-new FIRST OFFICER who of course is a woman. (sigh).

I mean, if you're currently on heavy meds and you can burn up a few brain cells to try something out and you don't want to think AT ALL, hell, give it a try but...I have to say, I don't recall seeing anything quite this bad in a while. At first, I truly thought it was a tongue-in-cheek thing--but I don't believe it is. It's just that bad.

You've been warned! LOLOL...I wish I could find something and race back here and tell you all how great it was, I truly do...

Hitch