First broadcast 25 September 2024.

The United Kingdom has a long successful tradition of ‘cosy’ detective and mystery series: very low-stakes, rather polite and understated, and often blending comedic or light-hearted elements into otherwise dry murder investigations. One of the most recent entries in this tradition is the six-part series Ludwig, which premiered in the UK in September 2024 before being renewed for a second season and awarded the International Emmy Award for Best Comedy Series.

I suppose it can be considered a comedy; it is also clearly a drama at the same time. A detective series? Based on its first episode, perhaps not – there is a murder to be solved in this series premiere, but the audience is never privy to any clues and solving the crime is clearly subordinate to more pressing matters.

Comic actor David Mitchell plays John Taylor, a reclusive and socially awkward puzzle maker. When his twin brother James – a Cambridge police detective – goes missing, leaving behind a cryptic note for no one to trust his colleagues, John is reluctantly convinced by sister-in-law Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin) to impersonate his brother and infiltrate the police.

Much of the appeal of this first episode is, of course, in watching John’s shambolic and unconvincing attempts to masquerade as the more confident and professional James. He is called in to lead a murder investigation, which leads to one of the series’ key master strokes: as a professional puzzle maker and compulsive puzzle solver, John turns out to be an unconventional but tremendously effective detective. His colleagues are confused, and his supervisor somewhat irritated, but the rapid and comprehensive results appear to speak for themselves.

The episode is slickly directed by Robert McKillop, including some very effective aerial shots of Cambridge and a nicely played vertical tracking shot during its opening moments. Series creator and writer Mark Brotherhood writes an effective script, but asides from one or two innovations it is all playing to an archetype.

Mitchell plays John as one would expect him to, which is not to criticise his acting so much as to acknowledge he has a particular cadence and physicality that he brings to every role he plays. Maxwell Martin is very funny and charming as Lucy, and the episode notably sets up some back story and ambivalence in their relationship for future instalments to reveal. There is some clear and disturbing back story between John and his missing brother as well: that’s part of the job of a first episode, after all – to set up opportunities for the series as a whole. Whether or not those threads are capably picked up and weaved through the remaining five episodes is yet to be seen.