Beyond Paradise has the best whodunits on TV ...Middle East

Were any Death in Paradise viewers discombobulated by the marginally grittier recent series? Don Gilet’s new lead detective, DI Mervin Wilson, is certainly less comic and cuddly than his predecessors. Perhaps you might find solace in the returning Devon-based spinoff, Beyond Paradise – and not just because it features Kris Marshall’s bumbling DI Humphrey Goodman from the early days of the Caribbean mothership.

Beyond Paradise is custom-built to be a big warm hug, and it returns for a third series with its cast of characters now so well established that they don’t require further exposition. There’s Humphrey and Martha (Sally Bretton) and their quest to foster a child; Humphrey’s competent sidekick DS Esther Williams (Zahra Ahmadi) and the more humorous station regulars, office manager Margo (Felicity Montagu) and resident dimwit Kelby (Dylan Llewellyn from Derry Girls and Big Boys).

Additional characters include Martha’s mother, Anne (Barbara Flynn), while Jamie Bamber, who played Martha’s fiancé Archie in series one, makes his return. Having been travelling and somehow managed to create a winery in the process, he now makes a play for Esther. Good to see the widowed DS with a potential new love interest – let’s hope Martha sees it that way.

And, of course, it all looks lovely – bucolic and endlessly sunny – with the Cornish harbour town of Looe playing the fictional Devon fishing port of Shipton Abbott. Hopefully, the residents of Looe are coping with the sort of tourist influx that turned Port Isaac into a mecca for Doc Martin fans.

But what really differentiates Beyond Paradise from cosy crime rivals like The Madame Blanc Mysteries and The Marlow Murder Club is the strength of the whodunit plots.

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In the new series opener, this involves a car plunging into the river separating Devon from Cornwall, and its driver, Niall, being drowned,. Entering the water in Cornwall but the body being retrieved in Devon results in a conflict of jurisdiction between the neighbouring police forces and Humphrey’s antagonistic Cornish counterpart wants to write off the death as a road traffic accident.

Humphrey suspects otherwise, his hunch piqued by, of all things, the victim wearing odd socks. His chief suspect is Niall’s partner, Arthur, an overbearing local councillor played by Hugh Dennis. Arthur has however a seemingly watertight alibi: he had called the police for help, saying that he and Niall had had an argument and that Niall had driven off in a drunken rage. And with a speed camera snapping Niall driving alone just before plunging into the river, how could Arthur have killed him?

The denouement is ingenious if far-fetched, nice-but-dim Kelby accidentally providing the vital clue when he goes to investigate a nearby case of sheep wrangling.

The episode also sees Humphrey and Martha’s fostering hopes apparently fulfilled when social worker Hannah calls to say that a young girl needs urgent care after her mother had been arrested and held on remand. This plays out sweetly in the future episodes I’ve seen, with the girl, Rosie, learning to trust Humphrey, a man she initially reckons to be “weird”.

We also get a surprise insight into Humphrey and Martha’s mildly kinky sex life – Kris Marshall’s character discovering an old pair of handcuffs and suggesting a spot of bondage. I couldn’t tell whether Martha looked eager or embarrassed.

Otherwise, this is a strong opening episode to a series that, three series in, has fully grown into its own skin. I’m just hoping Humphrey puts those handcuffs back in the desk drawer where he found them.

‘Beyond Paradise’ continues next Friday at 8pm on BBC One

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