We’ve mentioned this before, but it’s a grand British tradition for continuing series to have a Christmas special every year. It’s a good way to check in on favorite characters between seasons of a show, which can be months or years apart, but it’s also a good way to have a holiday-themed episode that doesn’t have to hit viewers over the head with Yuletide cheer. Acorn TV’ just dropped the first Christmas special for its hit series The Chelsea Detective, a few months before its third season debuts.
Opening Shot: The Chelsea neighborhood in London; in an apartment building decorated for the holidays, a man painstakingly works on an artifact.
The Gist: Virat Sharma (Nitin Ganatra) hears thumping music and footsteps from the flat above his, which he seems unbothered by. When the music stops and water starts dripping from his ceiling, though, he goes upstairs to the flat of his neighbor, Chloe Carmichael (Martha Kirby). He goes into the flat and sees Chloe’s body in an overflowing bathtub.
In the meantime, DI Max Arnold (Adrian Scarborough) gets a metal tree for his houseboat, while unpacking the sculpture, he gets a video call from his ex-wife, Astrid Fischer (Anamaria Marinca). She wants to make sure he remembers to meet her for an appointment with a couples’ counselor, whose specialty is helping separated spouses rekindle their relationship. Max seems to be less concerned about that than his massive toothache, which he claims he’s been too busy to have examined by a dentist.
When Max bikes to meet his partner, DS Layla Walsh (Vanessa Emme) and medical examiner Ashley Wilton (Sophie Stone) at Chloe’s flat, he’s surprised at the crowd surrounding the police. There are signs of cocaine use at the flat, as well as a possible struggle, so homicide can’t be ruled out.
Back at the station with Layla, DC Jess Lombard (Lucy Phelps) and DC Connor Pollock (Peter Bankolé), Max finds out that Chloe was a big pop star in the 2000s, with a hit holiday song called “Nobody Wants To Be Alone At Christmas,” whose residuals she has donated to charity for years.
Suspicion first falls on her former manager, Luke Beckett (Nabil Elouahabi), who sent threatening texts to her. She even went to the Metro Police’s cybercrime division to report the threats; DC Sean Kildare (Stephen Wright), a detective on the cyber squad, tells Max and his squad that when she started getting anonymous threats, the investigation stalled.
Others who fall under suspicion are Zadie Evans (Poppy Gilbert), a young woman who was staying with Chloe at the time of her death; Slyvie Wix (Sian Reese-Williams), a tabloid journalist who had been ghostwriting Chloe’s memoirs; and Andrew Mansfield (Julian Wadham), a member of parliament who worked with Chloe on her charity efforts.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Just to mix it up, this time we’ll compare The Chelsea Detective to a different Acorn TV series than we have in the past. Let’s say it’s similar in tone to The Madame Blanc Mysteries.
Our Take: The Chelsea Detective, created by Peter Fincham, has always been as much about the lives of Max and the other detectives he works with than about the mystery that they have to solve in each episode. This year’s Christmas special is no different.
Here, the holidays are more of a backdrop to the mystery and the other things going on than a main factor in the story. Yes, Chloe had a big holiday hit, but it’s acknowledged in perhaps two scenes. Even with Max, Astrid’s desire to work on their relationship and how confusing that notion has become for him is the prominent story. Heck, even his toothache gets more dialogue than anything about the holidays.
We don’t really get much in the way of story for Layla or the other members of Max’s team, which has been one of the highlights of this series so far. But the mystery in this episode is stronger than we’ve seen in the past, though we’re still somewhat left in the dark about who killed Chloe until the inevitable scene near the end where Alex sees something on a piece of paper and has a revelation. At least this time, going through and eliminating the various people of interest is an entertaining watch.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Astrid and Max’s aunt Olivia (Frances Barber) decide to make Max’s houseboat less depressing for the holidays, and they also invite themselves to stay for Christmas.
Sleeper Star: Frances Barber always steals whatever scenes she’s in as Olivia, who is much more free-spirited than her buttoned-up nephew.
Most Pilot-y Line: There are a couple of scenes where Max starts giving a witness scenarios that make them the killer that feel wildly accusatory and without a lot of supporting evidence. In another scene, Connor flat-out asks a person of interest, “Did you kill Chloe?” What did he think that person was going to say, “Damn skippy I killed her”?
Our Call: STREAM IT. An episode of The Chelsea Detective is always a good way to spend 90 minutes, and this year’s Christmas episode is no different. It’s a breezy watch with a now well-established set of characters that have good chemistry with each other.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
