Ready to figure out whodunit? Who doesn’t love a murder mystery party, after all? All the fun of solving a crime with… none of the crime. Well, now you can ride along on a series of fun murder mystery parties featuring your favorite celebrities. Will Arnett will star in Netflix’s Murderville, a new scripted meets improvised crime show series. The premise itself already sounds hilarious. But after watching the trailer, we are officially all in.
The show’s official description says:
Meet Senior Detective Terry Seattle (Will Arnett), Homicide Division. For Terry, every day means a new murder case and a new celebrity guest star as his partner. But here’s the catch: each episode’s guest star isn’t being given the script. They have no idea what’s about to happen to them. Together, the guest star and Terry Seattle will have to improvise their way through the case… but it will be up to each celebrity guest alone to name the killer. Join them as they punch a one-way ticket to Murderville.
This blend of scripted and unscripted seems like it might get complicated quickly. As Arnett shared with The Hollywood Reporter, “We’re basically making Law & Order without a script.” But it could also end up being a lot of fun. Murderville is based on an award-winning series from BBC 3, so we have precedent.
The series certainly will not have a dearth of excellent celebrity guests. Annie Murphy, Conan O’Brien, Ken Jeong, Kumail Nanjiani, Marshawn Lynch, and Sharon Stone will join Arnett to solve the weekly murder. We know Kumail Nanjiani will slay this. Along with everyone else, of course. Honestly, sign us up for an episode of Murderville. This sounds like a ton of fun.
Alongside Arnett, the series will also have some regular fixtures. Haneefah Wood will appear as Chief Rhonda Jenkins – Seattle. Lilan Bowden will appear as Medical Examiner Amber Kang. And Phillip Smithey as Detective Darren ‘Daz’ Phillips. A solid crew. But could one of them be the criminal we’re looking for? We’ll have to keep our eyes out.
This six-episode series may very well kick off its own genre as well, “procedural crime comedy.” Murderville arrives on Netflix on February 3.
Originally published on January 13, 2021.
