Ghost show that doesn't deserve life after death

There's a sense of deja vu with 'Dead Boy Detectives' and its all-too-predictable, plodding plot

- Katie Rosseinsky

Press play on Dead Boy Detectives and you’ll probably be hit with an overwhelming sense of deja vu. Haven’t you already watched a CGI-laden show about teenagers trying to solve crimes and fight ghosts? That was Lockwood & Co, a YA fantasy series that arrived on Netflix with much fanfare last year, only for it to be cancelled a few months later. And what does the moody lighting interspersed with bursts of neon remind you of? That’d be Riverdale or the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, both of which also bear the hallmarks of Dead Boy Detectives’ executive producer Greg Berlanti.

Throw in the fact that this new series is also set within the same universe as The Sandman, Netflix’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s comic book, and you might, like me, end up rolling your eyes and muttering about “commissioning by algorithm”. In fact, Dead Boy Detectives feels a lot like an amalgam of bits and pieces that have worked for the streamer before, rather than a cohesive creation.