McDonald & Dodds (2020– )

Anyone who thinks this inferior in any way clearly hasn't any grounding in the crime genre. It is pitch perfect comic detective fiction of which Christie, Allingham, or Sayers would have been rightly proud with just a dash of Columbo taking it to another level. Unsurprisingly so, given that Robert Murphy, the creator and writer, is steeped in the genre and can pull on so many threads to weave into his magic carpet.

The odd couple, tortoise and hare, relationship of the two leads is fertile ground for the twisty plot to flourish in. Yes, McDonald is annoying, but that's the whole point and it's not as if there is no clear reason for her to be so. To make this a criticism of the production is just bizarre as is the suggestion that Dodds could do a single-hander. It would lack all credibility for someone who has, for very obvious reasons, not left his desk for ten ... sorry, eleven ... years to suddenly become a solo lead detective. Without McDonald there is no Dodds.

This is definitely a partnership that has legs and it's to be hoped that ITV does not, as it is prone to do, pull the plug on the say so of the kind of witless trolls whose reviews bear no relation to reality.