With season 10 now airing on the BBC, and with two more seasons already commissioned, you might reasonably ask: why has a show that has been universally savaged by critics proved to be a ratings juggernaut for nearly a decade?ĭeath in Paradise follows the efforts of a bumbling, eccentric British/Irish detective – there have been four in total, played by Ben Miller, Kris Marshall, Ardal O’Hanlon and Ralf Little – to solve a murder on the fictitious Caribbean island of Saint Marie. There is even Death in Paradise fanfiction.

Photograph: Denis Guyenon/BBC/Red Planetĭeath in Paradise has spawned a lucrative book series, and increased tourism in Guadeloupe, where the show is filmed. (By comparison, Wolf Hall pulled in about 3-4 million viewers an episode.)ĭI Richard Poole, played by Ben Miller, making his return to the island. The show is licensed to more than 230 territories and is often the best-performing drama on the BBC its most-watched episode, series six premiere Erupting in Murder, pulled in more than 9 million viewers, while last year’s series averaged 8.14 million weekly viewers, making it the most-watched programme of the day. “A macabre advertisement for a tropical juice drink,” quipped the Telegraph.Īnd yet … it may not feature Ruth Wilson in a felt cloche with a CGI monkey, or the implacable Mark Rylance in a codpiece, but Death in Paradise has been pulling in ratings bigger than flagship BBC dramas on a modest budget, using a cast of C-list actors, week after week, for nine years.

“Everyone’s a caricature, their essential qualities semaphored with a brutal simplicity,” the Independent observed. “The TV equivalent of a boring holiday timeshare,” the Guardian noted.

When the show debuted in 2011, it was annihilated by critics, including at this newspaper. Death in Paradise is the Céline Dion of British TV: mocked in adolescence, tolerated in its prime, beloved in its dotage.

Most infamous undercover detective