Selena Gomez, Martin Short and Steve Martin in Only Murders In The Building, a comedy about True Crime fans who start a podcast. Streaming from Tuesday on Star.
Selena Gomez, Martin Short and Steve Martin in Only Murders In The Building, a comedy about True Crime fans who start a podcast. Streaming from Tuesday on Star.
Opinion by Karl Puschmann
Karl Puschmann is Culture and entertainment writer for the New Zealand Herald. His fascination lies in finding out what drives and inspires creative people.
During the first national lockdown, Tiger King became our collective True Crime obsession.
The Netflix series about a flamboyant yet highly shady owner of a big cat park in America had everything you could want from the genre; twists, turns, crime, passion, animal cruelty, and cold-blooded murder. It was highlyentertaining.
With each episode more calculated than an algebra test and more finely tuned than a showroom Maserati, it was easy to forget that its entertainment was powered by human - and animal - misery.
There's also an argument to be made that if we hadn't all been trapped in our bubbles when it dropped then Tiger King wouldn't have become the monster hit that it did. Plenty of quality True Crime series have followed in its paw prints but none have taken off in the same way.
But, thanks to the mutating power of a deadly virus, here we all are again. Back in level 4, sitting in our bubbles and trying to get through the day. And like the last time we were here, I've again returned to the True Crime genre to take my mind off, well, everything.
But just as Delta is a mutation of Covid, the show Only Murders in the Building is a mutation of the True Crime genre.
Steve Martin stars as Charles, a True Crime fan in Only Murders In The Building.
By this I mean, this True Crime series is not actually true or based on a true crime. Instead, it's a comedy series that sends up, satirises and deconstructs the tropes of the genre while also providing its only spiralling mystery for you to puzzle out as it goes along.
Just like Tiger King, there's twists, turns, crime, passion, animal cruelty, and cold-blooded murder. It's highly entertaining.
The series, which starts on the adult-centric Star hub of Disney+ from Tuesday, follows a trio of genre fans who come together to start their own True Crime podcast after a murder occurs in their building.
Officially ruled as a suicide the three amateur sleuths deduce that more nefarious work is at play based on little more than their desperate, individual need to inject meaning into their lives. There's Charles, a has-been actor, Oliver, a failing theatre director and Mabel, an artist who's struggling to remodel her aunt's apartment.
Selena Gomez, Martin Short and Steve Martin investigate a murder in Only Murders In The Building.
Between the three of them they're almost a competent investigating team. After playing a TV detective for years Charles brings useful skills like lock-picking to the table while Oliver's theatre background allows him to charm information out of people and Mabel can spot a clue a mile away thanks to a childhood spent buried in the mystery books of The Hardy Boys.
Where things falls apart is that aside from living in the same building they don't really know or like each other, they have nothing in common except a love of True Crime podcasts and they're all hiding their own secrets and lies from each other.
"A great True Crime mystery reveals itself, like an onion. First the crime, then the characters and then their secrets," Charles explains during a scene where the three are arguing about the best way to start the second episode of their podcast. "The secrets are the fun part. Who is telling the truth? Who is lying? What are they hiding?"
Selena Gomez is Mabel, a fan of True Crime, in the parody Only Murders in the Building.
As this demonstrates it's wonderfully meta, with the show deconstructing the True Crime genre while also having its own story adhere to its rules. I'm a few episodes into Only Murders in the Building and, like an onion, the series is slowly revealing itself. There's its core murder mystery to try to puzzle out but there's also the mystery behind its characters and how they all fit into this thing.
Not only is it intriguing it's also very funny, straddling the line between its serious mystery, straight comedy and silly absurdism.
That it does so successfully shouldn't be a surprise considering it stars the legendary, comedic, long-standing power duo of Steve Martin and Martin Short as Charles and Oliver. They're joined by actor-turned-pop star Selena Gomez as Mabel, who brings an acerbic edge to the gags.
Martin Short stars as Oliver, a fan of True Crime who starts a podcast in Only Murders In The Building.
While the crime of this True Crime series isn't true, its mystery will certainly keep you guessing, and its razor-sharp, yet loving, parody will keep you invested and clicking straight onto the next episode.
It's so good, in fact, that the real true crime would be to miss it.
