I have been meaning to watch this series ever since it came to my attention few weeks ago on Disney+. By my calculation, it should finish by mid of March, so I was kind of surprised when I checked three days ago that it was already completed in the first week. Apparently the final 2 episodes were released on the same day. Anyway I immediately started watching on Saturday and finished it yesterday. OK, here's more on the series.

Brief Story Line

Imogene Scott (Violett Beane - Truth or Dare, God Friended Me TV series etc) had been living with the wealthy Collier family for 18 years and was best friend with their daughter Anna (Lauren Patten - Blue Blood TV series etc). The whole family that consisted of Lawrence Collier (David Marshall Grant - The Devil Wears Prada etc), his wife Katherine (Jayne Atkinson - House of Cards TV series etc), their son Tripp (Jack Cutmore-Scott - Deception TV series etc), Anna's wife Leila (Pardis Seremi) and including Anna and Imogene went on a cruise to the Mediterranean to celebrate Lawrence's retirement. Some of the notable guests were obnoxious US businessman Keith (Michael Gladis - Mad Men TV series etc), Governor Alexandra (Tamberla Perry - They Cloned Tyrone etc), Father Toby (Danny Johnson) and the Chun family from Shanghai who were planning to merge their business with Collier.  

During the cruise, Imogene met with Rufus Cotesworth (Mandy Patinkin - Smurfs: The Lost Village, Criminal Minds TV series etc) who used to be the World's Greatest Detective. The Cruise Ship SS Varuna was owned by former banker Sunil (Rahul Kohli - iZombie TV series, The Fall of the House of Usher mini series etc) who was assisted by Crew Manager Teddy Goh (Angela Zhou) and Head of Security Jules (Hugo Diego Garcia) to operate. Unfortunately though, someone was killed in what seemed to be a locked-room murder. Now Rufus had to work on finding the truth together with the very reluctant Imogene who had no choice but to assist him. Subsequently Agent Hilde Eriksen (Linda Emond - Only Murders in the Building Season 3 etc) from Interpol also came on board to investigate the case.

So who had actually murdered the person and what was the reason for it? You could find out in this series.

End of Brief Story Line

As major fan of whodunit, especially locked-room murders, I was obviously intrigued in watching the latest series of such genre. And it was even more interesting when it happened on such a unique location with the "world's greatest detective" doing the investigation. Despite not based on any famous character from novels, I was still curious to see if this person was indeed great at deducing and finding out the truth. At first it did seem fun with the classic introduction of people involved which was done simple enough and did not take too long for the murder to happen, which was a plus point. The episode also ended with something that made me excited.

In subsequent episodes, as usual there would be further investigations done by Rufus and Imogene and the revealing of some facts and clues that made me think and guess. However, as the story progressed, I do not know why but I found myself not really sympathizing on Imogene despite her intelligence. Although her background would explain the way she acted, but I still felt sometimes her action did not justify her treatment towards others. Her method of putting herself in the shoe of others while trying to sense all that occurred was probably one of a kind, but sometimes I felt it to be a bit weird, especially in the 7th episode. Luckily it had a shocking ending that I did not see coming.

This kind of story usually would provide a lot of deceptions before we could finally guess the real culprit. And this one did not differ either. I was unable to know the truth until much latter stage. There were plenty of twists and turns which was OK until the one that was shown on episode 9. I thought it tried too hard to give something else aside from a simple whodunit. But instead of making me entertained, I actually felt it deviated too much from the genre and making it overly complicated. The conclusion was not satisfying either, with an ending that was clearly done for future seasons but failed to make me eagerly awaiting for it. Not sure if this is renewed as by the time I write this post, there is no news yet.

The series featured a very large ensemble cast. Aside from the ones I mentioned above, there were also few others like Jere Burns (Justified TV series etc) as Llewellyn Mathers the legal counsel of Colliers, Karoline and Lisa Lu (Crazy Rich Asians etc) as Eleanor Chun and her grandmother Celia Chun respectively and Annie Q. Riegel (The Leftovers TV series etc) as Winnie one of the crew members. It was created by Heidi Cole McAdams and Mike Weiss for Hulu, and aimed for adults with mature theme and some nudity. So it was not Disney+ originals but was made available in Indonesia via the streaming platform. 

Overall this would probably be more satisfying for me if it did not over complicate things and focus on the mystery like other movie/series of its type. The twists were interesting enough and the truth was quite shocking, however the conclusion was not exactly great to me personally. It did not have a light tone and comedic feel (I don't think I felt amused by anything here), but it was not dark and gloomy either. The investigation were interesting at times but the part of Imogene putting herself into other people's shoes scenes were not interesting for me. Apparently it was not that well received by critics as well as it only got mixed review. For me this series might be better off finishing at the 8th episode rather than extending it over. So if you are fans of whodunit, maybe you could give this a try and enjoy some of the usual traits, but I personally prefer something more classic.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars