If you like your murder mysteries to be smart, snarky and cerebral, Hulu‘s new show could be just the thing to fill that Knives Out-shaped hole in your to-watch list. Death and Other Details takes the familiar trope of the Agatha Christie-esque murder in a remote house, and follows the lead of Murder on the Orient Express by moving it to somewhere more luxurious: a lavishly restored ocean liner where the pampered come to play, in this case.
Violett Beane plays the “brilliant and restless” Imogene Scott, who finds herself the prime suspect when one of the cruise ship’s guests is murdered. In order to prove her innocence, she has to team up with a man she can’t stand but who just happens to be, or at least used to be, the world’s greatest detective. His name is Rufus Cotesworth, and he’s played by Homeland‘s Mandy Patinkin. Can the odd couple solve the murder and clear Scott’s name before it’s too late?
Death and Other Details: The Details
The show was originally titled Career Opportunities in Murder and Mayhem, which perhaps gives a better idea of the overall vibe than the final title: when it was first announced back in 2022, the show’s pitch asked “how do you solve a murder in a post-fact world?… everyone on board is hiding something, but is one of them a killer?”
Hulu has assembled a fun ensemble cast here, including Lauren Patten of Blue Bloods, Rahul Kohli of The Fall of the House of Usher, and Angela Zhou from Hell on Wheels, and the showrunners are Mike Weiss (The Mentalist and Stumptown) and Heidi Cole McAdams (The 100, Stumptown).
The Stumptown connection is a big draw here: the critically-acclaimed crime drama did a great job of bringing the graphic novel to the screen with its sense of humor intact, and many of the glowing reviews praised the way it managed to do something interesting and fun within the confines of network TV. Many of the reviews particularly praised the writing and the characterisation, which bodes well for Weiss and McAdams’ latest series ranking among the best Hulu shows.
Death and Other Details will be available to stream on Hulu from 16 January 2024. We expect that it will come to Disney Plus outside of the US on that date or shortly after. The first two episodes will be available immediately, and then there will be a new episode every Tuesday until the two-episode finale on March 5.