Ludwig

It’s an easygoing experience just as capable of drawing the viewer in immediately as they wonder where the time has gone at the end of every episode. In no way is a cipher needed to decode the charm of “Ludwig.”

It's really Ludwig's overall format that does it for me, setting it apart from even some of the best procedurals out there. Framing each murder as a puzzle scratches a particular itch for me.

“Ludwing” never loses its pip nor its charm and a large reason why it works rests on Mitchell’s tensed-up shoulders and the show’s creators. He’s no cookie-cutter ace detective; rather he is a welcome addition to the pantheon of fictional detectives.

It’s an entertaining, mordantly funny show that’s also softhearted despite all the killings. Mitchell and Maxwell Martin have tremendous chemistry, as do Mitchell and Ola. The whole cast clicks.

The comedic possibilities of social awkwardness have been explored thoroughly in the past couple of decades in British and American entertainment, but Mitchell is especially good at evoking it, and the way it happens in “Ludwig” feels new. The series manages to function as a comedy, a drama, and a mystery procedural at once, and the awkwardness isn’t only for fun.

With a capable cast of supporting characters and a delightfully idiosyncratic trio of leads, the show turns the formulaic British crime procedural on its head in increasingly delightful ways.

Ludwig is a fun mystery series to follow, mainly because of David Mitchell’s performance as a reluctant detective who’d rather just create puzzles alone in his flat than solve murders.

“Ludwig” plays its minor and major chords, its darker and lighter passages, with equal clarity and force.

e situation in this comedy is among the hoariest of conceits: a lookalike faking his way across a terrain with which he is not familiar in the least, a setup of the type that usually involves cringey, predictable and implausible predicaments. And yet it all feels very fresh. And not cringey. Which is largely due to Mr. Mitchell.

The procedural aspects here are clever and twisty, and the serialized mystery of James’s disappearance is an ample engine.

What you’ll stick around for is Mitchell, whose charming awkwardness effortlessly carries the show past its most contrived moments and exposes the sympathetic heart beneath.

[Ludwig] has a premise nearly as convoluted as the puzzles John loves to solve. But once you’ve finished rolling your eyes about how silly all of that is, the show’s charms will reel you in for each cozy mystery.

It's a blend of new and old, ridiculous and well-trodden, and for some it will lean too far one way or the other for their sensibilities. However, if you're willing to go with it, Mitchell and co have created a distinct - and distinctly fun - series which also sits alongside those murder mystery shows it's paying homage to, keeps you hooked and is endlessly watchable.

The more episodes I watched, the more I liked it. There’s a cracking cast, including Maxwell Martin, Sophie Willan from Alma’s Not Normal, and Dipo Ola as an unwitting detective. Towards the end, the overarching mystery (what happened to Ludwig’s twin?) slams into place.

None of this would work without Mitchell, who aside from being quite funny here has expressive, ever-calculating and -deducing eyes that make him believable as a detective. And creator and writer Mark Brotherhood (Death In Paradise) builds a nice, cozy rapport with John’s work crew.

There’s a lot to like about the six-episode series, even if the execution occasionally leaves something to be desired.

It may not be the most exciting series you'll see this month, but it might well be the most charming.

It is a very gentle six episodes. There is a lot of explanation of every plot point and every twist – people point at documents during closeups of documents, look very carefully at names on office doors and lay out timelines as if viewers have only just discovered clocks – but its amiability predisposes you to suspend the vast amounts of disbelief required to make the thing work.