Look, we all want Brooke Shields to be in gainful employment. We all want her to have a fabulous third act to her career. God knows, the child model turned star of prurient fever dreams Pretty Baby and The Blue Lagoon (and the “Nothing comes between me and my Calvins” jeans ad campaign when she was 15) has earned it.
Plus, she did a fine turn in Friends and a number of us remember Suddenly Susan very fondly. But she’s terrible in the terrible new thing she’s in, which is a six-part comedy drama called You’re Killing Me. Shields plays successful cosy mystery novelist Allison Chandler, who lives in the picturesque town of Founder’s Cove, Maine.
It’s Murder, She Wrote vibes all right, but please lower your expectations. Allison’s publishers are beginning to make noises about the need to attract a younger demographic to her books. Allison – who is less a character than a loose assemblage of simple responses to stimulants, though things improve slightly after the pilot – is outraged.
She is also incredibly rude to young true crime podcaster Andi (Amalia Williamson), who comes to her book signing, because she knows Andi has called her work “outdated and inaccurate”. But when her sleazebag pal Nash Gilbert (Matthew MacFadzean) suggests that her latest book maybe isn’t her best work, she executes her reflection-response instead. Could the times actually be a-changing and leaving her behind?
If only there was a young person around to ask and maybe learn from, however antagonistic she might be. Alas, before Nash can guide her further on this voyage of self-discovery, he has plummeted to his death from a balcony. An apparent suicide – or is it?
Soon, whichever AI monkey is in charge of storyboarding has contrived to bring Andi and Allison together to investigate what they believe to be murder. Soon the police, led by new county detective Coppy McCopface – sorry, I mean Jack Kerrigan (Tom Cavanagh) – agree. Plot is added (a blackmail setup, a naive stepdaughter, impromptu gift shop closures become pivotal, people are flung into car boots when the monkey realises nothing as happened for a while).
Extract — continue reading at the source.
