Welcome to Murder Island, detective. I’m starting to think we should never have called it Murder Island if we didn’t want all this murdering going on, but we’re here now, aren’t we. You’re currently on the dock. The only way in and out of Murder Island? By boat, of course, because we’re in Scotland, and on TV Scotland is legally bound to be portrayed as an outland with no infrastructure. Your investigation will probably span a few days but haunt you for life. Anyway, you can bunk down in a room above the island’s only pub. The landlord is quite sinister and reluctant to talk about literally anything, but you really can’t argue with such an affordable room rate. Not in this economy. Yes, detective, it’s been quite the scene: a woman who was new to the island has been murdered, so it’s difficult for any of the incredibly shifty locals to particularly care about the case because they are all strange island people. Ah, I should have mentioned: literally everyone on the island is being weird in a way that suggests they may be a murderer, so this isn’t going to be easy. Look, there’s the shopkeeper. No one walks like that, do they? You only walk like that when you’ve just committed a murder. Jot that down. Why do we watch procedural murder investigations, detective? Is it because we rejoice in the blood and the gore? No, we rarely care about the killing itself. Is it because we are intrigued about what can send an upstanding member of the community to the most depraved depths of humanity – taking another life, in a moment of passion or anger or fear – and wonder distantly what circumstances would take us to that very edge? A little bit, but not really. No, detective, the reason we watch these shows is because we like to think we solved the crime before the actor actually does solve it. We like to point at the screen and say: “I knew she was being shifty!” We like to solve murder like a jigsaw puzzle. We see homicide as something to be a smart-arse about. A crossword filled in with blood. Well, here she is, detective. Not a pretty scene. I’m sure you know how detective dramas go by now: look around the room, identify a couple of subtle clues that will come to fruition later, get distracted by the red herring front and centre, resist the impulse to blame the first person you meet. But here’s how Murder Island differs from the norm: this is part detective procedural that you get the satisfaction of solving, and part reality show. Four teams of two have been invited on to the island to try to solve the murder, which they do while being constantly ranked and judged by real-world homicide detectives observing their work (they don’t know who did it, either). It’s like trying to watch Poirot but with eight Poirots, and sometimes the useless Poirots actively get in the way of the better Poirots doing their Poiroting, all while a team of retired police officers get genuinely angry at Poirot for how off the rails Poirot’s investigation is going. This makes it thrilling. As well as you trying to solve the murder from your sofa, you are trying to guess which team is undertaking the best investigation and therefore stands to win £50,000. In between all that, dramatic flashback scenes show the actors under interrogation, with the entire storyline – twists and all – written by Ian Rankin, creator of Inspector Rebus. Yes, it does sound like a really middle-class version of an escape room, doesn’t it? Good observation, detective. Jot it down with the others. Now, where’s that chillingly stupid farmer’s boy? Is Murder Island good? Detective, it is fantastic. There is no other TV show since Robot Wars that I have been so moved to apply for series two of. It does this by being a detective show, sure, but making the actual procedure of noticing the clues so central that it almost – but never quite – breaks the fourth wall. This is perfect TV to watch with someone, too: on the sofa together you can form a good cop/bad cop duo, squabbling over who is suspicious and who is not. And, crucially, it’s difficult: I have no idea who did this killing or why; I think there’s a clue we’re missing with the wine glasses but that’s about it. It’s a long road to the truth, detective. Jot that one down.