The three instigators

STREAM OF STORIES

- RAJA SEN

Do you remember The Three Investigators? Those slim detective novels we read as children featured enthusiastic young sleuths falling into cases more complicated and sinister than their age would normally allow, but because the titles of the books were prefaced with the words “Alfred Hitchcock presents”, we expected shadowy things.

We knew Jupiter Jones and his pals would stumble into genuine danger, into mysteries with teeth. The director's name on the cover promised darkness, and those paperbacks delivered. The boys went at it with gusto, uncovering secrets that mattered. The stakes remained high.

The TV series Only Murders In The Building—streaming in India on JioHotstar, and featuring three unlikely seekers of truth who cater to three different demographics—similarly advertises suspense with its very title. A corpse is found up in the same fancy Manhattan building, season after season. The great Dianne Wiest shows up this year, in fact, to scold the detectives: “Four is a lot of murders,” she tuts. Now in its fifth season, however, the show appears to have given up on the whodunnit. The new season takes no real stab at mystery or plotting, and the delightful troika of Martin Short, Selena Gomez and Steve Martin (the co-creator of the series) don't really seem to care about the actual murder. This is not an accusation as much as it is an observation: the show has turned into something else entirely. It has exchanged its trench coat for a dressing-gown.