MURDERVILLE: A Curiosity That Wastes Its Potential

If I am to be completely honest, the trailer of Murderville did not captivate me at all, although the production itself, based on a British format, had the makings of something unique and interesting compared to previous Netflix productions. However, I liked that rather unexpected stars were invited to the show, who could reveal their yet-undiscovered comedic talent to a wider audience. In the end, we got a product that probably amused only the people working on set, while leaving the viewers deeply confused. And I am aware that improvisation is an extremely difficult art, so I did not expect the participants to handle it perfectly. So, is it worth spending your time on this proposal?

If you are curious how the stars such as Sharon Stone handled – or rather failed to handle – improvisation, then I think that as a curiosity, you can spend a bit of free time on a short screening; the episodes are less than 30 minutes long. Overall, however, it is not a groundbreaking or captivating work in any sense. I saw a similar format, for example, on Jimmy Fallon’s show with Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead role – and I liked that one much more.

In Murderville, there are flashes of genius when the actors involved in the project reach the heights of their creativity, trying to make everyone around them laugh. However, most of the time it is nothing more than a festival of embarrassment, evoking at most discomfort rather than a smile on the viewer’s face. And I really tried to approach Netflix’s new proposal with an open mind, but the whole thing simply did not engage me at all.

Does the production therefore offer no positives? It is not that bad. Although over the course of six episodes with six different guests, the formula of the show wears thin rather quickly. Everything relies on the same pattern, leaving no room for unpredictability or any real excitement. The intentional awkwardness of each invited guest, who plays the new partner of Detective Terry Seattle (played by Will Arnett), becomes tiresome and not very funny.

We watch their subsequent attempts at improvisation, and sometimes – as I mentioned earlier – we get some genuinely funny lines, but for the most part, they fail completely, even though some of them work in comedy every day. Let’s be honest, most actors are not masters of improvisation, which is why – in my opinion – a better idea would have been to invite someone who can handle this form, which would have made the dialogue genuinely funny.

I have not seen the British original, but I am somewhat familiar with its creators’ approach to the subject. Based on the reviews I have read, I gather that the lack of experience of the invited guests was not a flaw at all, but quite the opposite – an advantage, when they burst into uncontrollable laughter in response to jokes delivered by the cast members. In the American version, there is no room for any actor to, colloquially speaking, crack up during the performance, which makes the whole thing feel incredibly artificial at times.

Extremely funny moments go unnoticed, while smiles appear in the wrong places. The show featured, among others, Conan O’Brien, who is a comedian, but who in this case lacks any enthusiasm whatsoever, which unfortunately confirms that the quality of Murderville is far from great. It is primarily a weekend filler that quickly becomes boring and repetitive.

Unfortunately, the production operates on a copy–paste method when it comes to subsequent episodes, completely failing to take advantage of the opportunities offered by a procedural format. On top of that, it is clear that the invited guests do not manage the show’s format at all, which makes their attempts at improvisation end in complete failure in most cases.

What I did like were the film noir references through the detective Terry’s voice-over, but that is not enough to create a successful production. Despite solid foundations, the series completely fails to use its potential, becoming a thoroughly repetitive creation that quickly loses the viewer’s interest. For me, Murderville will remain in the category of curiosities that had the potential to turn out much better but, for various reasons, simply did not.