My Life Is Murder

Yeah Lucy Lawless is back! Loved, loved, loved this show! It made me laugh, cry, and sit in suspense. Alexa Crowe is witty, smart, and driven. Love the relationship between her and her sidekick and her ex boss. It's one of those shows that you enjoyed so much it seemed to fly by while watching. Lucy nails this character. Can't wait to see more!

Australian commercial channels have a history of producing cheap, clickbaiting, police dramas, or worse: bad imitations (see the recent botched re-boots of Ms Fisher and Dr Blake). So I was curious about this one. As it happens, the first episode was watchable, and in parts enjoyable. The set-up for the series is based on a well-known formula: retired cop (for reasons undisclosed -this is presumably a red herring backstory that will be revealed one detail per episode) gets out of retirement because a former colleague needs help to close a case worthy of investigation. Said ex-cop accepts the assignment and gets paired with IT whizz sidekick with a personality twist or two (this one has a thing about car detailing and high-end vacuum cleaners). So far, it's standard cop drama / PI fare, and we've seen quite a few variations of this recipe over the years. What makes the series watchable is the acting lead, kiwi star Lucy Lawless (perhaps best known for her role as Xena) who delivers a good performance. The script for the first episode had the merit of not being totally obvious from the first five minutes, so keeping the viewer engaged. And the portrayal of the lead female character was engaging. But there are some flaws that need to be addressed. I'll skip over the McGyveresque level of unbelievability of the aforementioned whizz kid's online search prowess. More seriously, in this day and age, unless you are trying to wink-wink / nudge-nudge Amazon for international distribution, one should seriously consider naming the female lead character something other than "Alexa". I felt that was either cheap, low, unfair, or all of the above. Also, don't create a sub-plot about European appliances with an unreadable instruction manual, and then force the lead actor to deliver an articulate (scripted) phone conversation in the said language (German): if Alexa can have this level of interaction, then she could cope with the foreign language manual, couldn't she? (coz google translate would not be able to speak German that good, would it?). Overall a good first effort, but needs smarter/stronger scripts to rise to the level of Australian classics (Ms Fisher, Dr Blake, Rake, Janet King, Jack Irish, Mystery Road, and so on).

During recent holidays I rewatched My Life is Murder and I enjoyed it much more the second time around and can't wait for season 4, currently in post production. I understand Alexa's cranky and angry disposition better, dealing with the death of her husband, retirement from a job she obviously enjoyed, and dealing with a brother in prison. But the move to New Zealand and surrounding herself with mellow caring people who love her despite her crankiness she is slowly mellowing out.

Bombarded with grizzly, blood and gore TV shows that stretched themselves out in 6, 8, to 10 episodes for no reason, with an alcoholic, or divorced, or any number of back story problems detective, it is wonderful to relax in a quirky and funny crime show set in one of the most beautiful cities/countries in the world. Sit back with Eye candy Harry presenting the crime to Alexis in one of the many gorgeous sites in Auckland and off we go.

Instead of leaving all the detecting to just one protagonist like another favorite show of mine, Vera, the staff of My Life is Murder allows Alexa to share TV moments wit her wonderful co-stars, Madison, Will, Reuben (more eye candy) andnew comers Beth and her "cute as a button" niece. All of these are great actors that bring a positive quirky attitude to the show and can't wait to see them again.

I am amazed at the many reviewers that complain about "too much color" in the show?@#$? WTF? How can there be too much color? Do these folks live in a Georgia O'Keefe, only stucco, environment? Or Minnesota in the middle of the winter? How can there be too much color? If it bugs you so much, you can change the settings on your TV. I spent a month in Auckland, and yes, the colors are gorgeous. During My first drive from the airport to my friend's house I screamed in delight over a flock of huge birds in the freeway median, gorgeous bright blue with bright colors around their eyes and beaks, just eating una fard of the traffic. . Bougainvilleas and other flowering trees dripped outside my bedroom window and beyond that the azure of the ocean. The show does not exaggerate...., everywhere in Auckland you see beautiful vistas.

Kudos to Madison's stylist and Kudos to Madison herself who struts around with joy in every scene she is in wearing every color in the world with fun and pizzaz. Kudos, too to Harry's looks....amazingly he can wear a zipped up athletic top under a tailored suit and looks great. Ironically, my one complaint of the show is Alexas' thin floppy coats. She must have several dozen, in every color. She doesn't seem cold, doesn't use the pockets, they just seem to flap in the wind for no reason. LOL

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I truly enjoyed this series. I hope it gets a 2nd season. Lucy Lawless makes the show. I do like the supporting characters as well. Lucy did not want the main character to have some dark secret and dark background and it shows. The show has a good sense of humor and is quirky and positive. The cases are all cold cases. They tended to be a bit predictable. Hopefully that will improve. The show has beautiful location shoots and is fun. We need shows like this to balance out all the gruesome dark shows that seem to populate the airwaves these days.

They are going into season 4! Hurrah. Still loving it.

Easy to watch, with a pro cast, well-directed and shot, this mystery series is lightweight but fun. The editing could be tightened up a bit as the current pace is a bit too relaxed for murder but other than that it's an enjoyable way to pass the time on a hot summer's night. I'd be curious to see what a season 2 might bring...