Aduba shines in quirky White House mystery

NETFLIX's The Residence ushers the Shondaland empire back to the White House with a broad, escapist twist. Whereas Scandal was a drama about a fixer, this limited series, created by Scandal writer and producer Paul William Davies, is a hammy whodunit starring Uzo Aduba as Cordelia Cupp, the world's greatest detective (and an inveterate birder).

- LILI LOOFBOUROW

The show's world is implausible, well-rendered and surprisingly specific. This is an alternate universe where the president (Paul Fitzgerald) is gay, married and trying to save the United States' shaky relationship with Australia and a fledgling administration with a fancy state dinner.

It's not a home run. The setting charts a mess, the White House calling-rapher is off his game and the food is as meagre as it is bewildering. But things really go south when White House chef Walter A.B. Wynter (Andre De Shields Esposito) - the man in charge of forging the permanent White House staff and the new president's employees into a functional team - is found dead in the State Room's third floor, his body riddled with a comical number of potential causes of death.

Spiritually akin to Clue and especially Knives Out, to which it explicitly refers (Daniel Craig's character, Benoit Blanc, gets a shout-out), The Residence is less original than winsomely derivative. The series is packed with references to other mysteries and other White House shows, with the first episode featuring more than one time-lapse sequence in which shadows pass dramatically over federal buildings, a la House of Cards.