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The Chelsea Detective: Series 1
R0 - United Kingdom - Acorn Media Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (11th October 2023). |
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The Film
 Chelsea CID Detective Inspector Max Arnold (Gosford Park's Adrian Scarborough) is facing difficulties: his father has just died, leaving him at the mercy of his meddling aunt Olivia (A Zed & Two Noughts' Frances Barber) in disposing of the contents of the older man's bookshop, he is in a custody battle with his ex-girlfriend Astrid (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days' Anamaria Marinca) over a £500 coffee maker she got the flat, he got a houseboat that has plumbing issues whenever the tide goes out and his partner Detective Inspector Priya Shamsie (Garden Party's Sonita Henry) has returned three months early from maternity leave and he has no idea why. Through four feature-length cases, the viewer gets to see how these two work together, dyslexic Max finding clues and connections through the language of images CCTV camera footage, photographs, drawings, and his alternate private version of the murder board while Priya acts on her gut, and how these approaches sometimes grate against each other but sometimes compliment one another. In the series opener "The Wages of Sin" (88:22), Max and Priya must determine if widowed stonemason Andrew Knightley (Poldark's Richard Hope) fell, jumped, or was pushed in front of a train, uncovering a web of intrigue involving the paranormal, gaslighting, drugging, and blackmail surrounding a photograph of an unknown young woman. In "Mr. Romano" (87:08), the PR-minded wife (The Good Liar's Stella Stocker) of celebrity chef Julia Romano (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' Pooky Quesnel) goes missing one night along with her car. The detective duo's investigation into the family unearths secrets, betrayals, a missing husband, a troubled son; and the pair are certain that their missing person is dead until Julia receives an email promising a reunion. "The Gentle Giant" (91:17) is Steve O'Hara (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang's Che Walker) - winner of a "Local Hero" award for his citizen's arrest of a gang of teenage drug dealers is found in an alley with a knife in his side and surrounded by drugs. Although O'Hara remains a hero to his cancer-stricken, invalid wife (Wallander's Sarah Smart), Max and Priya must discover whether O'Hara was being set up or a target of revenge from a deadly incident decades before. Finally, in "A Chelsea Education" (89:15), the murder of a popular private school schoolmaster (Medics' Clarence Smith) reveals a wealth of suspects including his blackmailing headmaster (Beech Is Back's Alexander Hanson), a colleague with a crush (John Carter's Pippa Nixon), and a disgruntled student (Jeremias Amoore) and his careerist father (Peter Stark), not to mention his best friend (Hinterland's Richard Harrington), his own wife (Pilgrimage's Mina Andala), their daughter (Tia May Watts) and her unfailingly loyal best friend (Libby Mai). Apart from the extremely-contrived first episode, The Chelsea Detective is very much a standard cozy mystery series moved from the counties to the city although presumably only British viewers will be able to tell glean how effective the series is in making Chelsea a character while for the rest of us, London is London whatever the period and the burden rests on Scarborough to carry the series through the usual obvious red herrings, misdirection, and murderer reveals two of the cases withhold suspect information on characters until the last minute to keep the viewer from guessing while the culprits of the other two cases become obvious just a couple minutes before the scene which starts dropping hints and the actor makes the most of character backstory moments that are few and far between. I saw the burden is on Scarborough because the series affords an equal amount of time to Priya's home life problems with her new baby and husband (EastEnders' Davood Ghadami), but the IMDb cast lists reveals that Henry does not return in the second series and Max gets a new partners. Hopefully, the second series gives more to do for Arnolds' underlings Pollock (DI Ray's Peter Bankolι) and Lombard (Lucy Phelps) - along with deaf pathologist Ashley (Marchlands' Sophie Stone) who get some one or two engaging scenes per episode and are listed as appearing in the all eight episodes thus far. 
Video
Shot in high-definition (particulars not disclosed) on location and in studio, The Chelsea Detective's 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen image holds up well on DVD in close-ups more so than long shots (particularly some of the busier, handheld location bits), presumably because the look of the show is optimized primarily for HD streaming at various bitrates with physical media as an afterthought. Bright scenes evince good detail and contrast while the night scenes would probably benefit from a 1080p or 4K encode (I believe the series is streamable in 4K with HDR from some services). 
Audio
The Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack privileges dialogue and music with a few hard directional effects and a wash of background city atmosphere. Sound recording was a concern with shooting in the middle of the city, but the mix does not show it. Optional English HoH subtitle are included. 
Extras
Extras are split between the two discs. On disc one, there is a "The Making of The Chelsea Detective" (14:05) in which Scarborough and Henry discuss their characters, the attempt to make Chelsea a character itself, the concerns with shooting sound in the city, wild weather during the location shoots, and the decision to build the interior of Max's houseboat in the studio to allow removable walls for better camera coverage of scenes.  Disc two features "Tour the Sets" (6:51) which focuses on the police bullpen created in the studio due to privacy and permission concerns about shooting in actual police stations. Both extras include optional English HoH subtitles that can be enabled via remote or through the main menu's subtitle option.
Overall
The novelty of setting and shooting The Chelsea Detective in Chelsea will probably be lost on most non-British viewers for whom London is just London, but some nice casting choices make the familiar plots entertaining and even sometimes diverting.
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