CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Dᴇᴀᴛʜ In Paradise on BBC1: There’ll be trouble in Paradise if rude new DI Mervin doesn’t cheer up soon
Excuse me, but there’s supposed to be a dress code on the Caribbean isle of Saint Marie: suit and tie, starched collar and buttoned-up manners.
A detective can’t just slouch into the station wearing a shapeless bucket hat that makes him look like a reject from an Oasis tribute band. It’s not done.
Don Gilet, a familiar face from Holby City and EastEnders, was making few friends as he became the fifth British policeman to settle reluctantly into the job, on Dᴇᴀᴛʜ In Paradise.
DI Mervin Wilson was meant to be heading back to England after a private break on the island, when he was hauled off the plane and appointed the successor to DI Neville Parker (Ralf Little).
How the locals thought they could get through Christmas without a detective to solve the annual spate of festive killings is a mystery in itself. Mervin complained that the pace of island life was too slow for him, but he wasn’t saying that once the mortuary started filling up with men dressed in Santa outfits.
Mervin didn’t have a good word to say for the place, in fact. The phone signal, the accommodation, the air con, he moaned about all of it, until DS Naomi Thomas (Shantol Jackson) pulled him up: ‘Do you have to keep criticising every single thing? Because when you do, it is very hard for us not to take it personally.’
Excuse me, but there’s supposed to be a dress code on the Caribbean isle of Saint Marie: suit and tie, starched collar and buttoned-up manners
Don Gilet (pictured) is the new lead actor in BBC One’s Dᴇᴀᴛʜ in Paradise
Gilet as DI Mervin Wilson. The character will grow on us, but he’d better do so quickly
It’s asking a lot of viewers, too. We’ve loved the show for 13 years, and we know the formula: the new man is always miserable, homesick and awkward until Saint Marie has a chance to work its magic.
But this is the first time we’ve encountered a replacement who is actively unpleasant to his juniors. He ignored Naomi when he met her, and interrupted bar owner Catherine (Elizabeth Bourgine), unaware that she is practically queen of the island.
He even refused to join the squad and Commissioner Selwyn Patterson (Don Warrington) for celebratory drinks after solving the murders. That’s just rude.
Officer Darlene (Ginny Holder) nicknamed him DI Fancypants, but the truth is there was little fancy about his grey slacks or anything else.
Mervin will grow on us. But he’d better do it quickly.
Dwayne (Danny John-Jules) won’t be hanging around to see it happen. He returned to the force earlier this year, but a weekend spent on protection duty, guarding a small-time crook who survived a shooting, convinced him that he’d prefer to spend his retirement fishing with his dad (the wonderfully dissolute Ram John Holder).
That whole escapade, with Dwayne playing bodyguard in a remote safe house and keeping up with the plot by phone, felt like a bolted-on addition.
But any gripes about the quality of this episode are easily over-ridden by a terrific turn from Jim Howick (aka Pat, the scoutmaster with an arrow through his neck, from Ghosts).
He made a marvellous suspect, even attempting to stuff a handgun into the back of his belt. After two attempts, it ended up in his underpants.
