Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *
Cast: Jason Watkins, Tala Gouveia, Pearl Chanda, Jack Riddiford, James Murray, Sebastian Knapp, Robert Lindsay, Natalie Mendoza, Rosalie Craig, Susannah Fielding, Jack Ashton, Roger Evans, Navin Chowdhry, Ellie Kendrick, Cassie Bradley.
Painting by numbers is not to be confused with great art but if it helps gain artistic perspective then it is an application of learning that can be seen as being undervalued, and if it helps appreciate a finer point of view, then who can decry it in its future potential for the student willing to study and gain pleasure from.
The same sentiment could be administered to the art of detective fiction, the same painting by numbers effect, the gradual, and sometimes cumbersome, approach where you can feel the script being written methodically but without any real sense of depth, can work but in a mid-afternoon sense of reveal and gentle persuasion, more suited to the tea-time brigade who fight tirelessly from their armchairs as the sun goes over the horizon and all is quiet on the street.
To be placed before the Sunday night audience there must be suspense, danger, a threat that causes the armchair detective to pick up on that one clue and that teased out like a splinter from a finger, and whilst the latest offering by television is the mismatched McDonald And Dodds, there is no sense of alarm, no cause for concern, and like the excellent Columbo before it, the reveal is played out before the viewer, leaving only the why to be discerned.
The why is ultimate point of the detective drama, the how and the who are merely window dressing for the audience, however unlike Columbo, and with a cast that included the impeccable Robert Lindsay, the likeable Jason Watkins and the surefooted Ellie Kendrick, there is a lack of tension placed before the viewer which is at best irritating, and at worst almost a sense of punishment on the senses and the mind.
Whilst Robert Lindsay’s character, the multi-millionaire inventor Max Crockett, is absurdly excellent in his King Lear-like approach of pushing his daughters into competition against each other, the whole balance of the investigation and of the show, is thrown completely to one sided, an off kilter display to which the focus on the two detectives, the methodical but being urged to retire Dodds and the out of her depth in the ways of West Country life McDonald are not compelling enough to carry the premise of the show; painting by numbers, detective thriller by standard and almost cliched words.
A detective can be utterly repellent, but they must have that one redeeming quality that makes them stand out, something to which neither truly showed in the first episode, Invisible.
In amongst all the other detective thrillers and offerings on television, McDonald And Dodds does not come up to scratch; a hope that it might be seen as teething problems but certainly one that has no initial bite.
Ian D. Hall