Ludwig

Rated TV-14 • BritBox

The novelist Dorothy Sayers—an Inklings-adjacent friend of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien—once said, “Death in particular seems to provide the minds of the Anglo-Saxon race with a greater fund of innocent amusement than any other single subject.” Of course, Sayers isn’t saying English speakers are morbid people who enjoy the pain and tragedy that goes along with real death. She’s actually talking about our fondness for detective fiction, a genre created in 1841 by Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” While an American might have invented the genre, British writers like Sayers and Agatha Christie perfected it, and the new series Ludwig, now streaming on BritBox, captures some of the spirit of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.

British sketch comedian David Mitchell plays John Taylor, a reclusive genius who publishes word games and logic puzzles under the pen name “Ludwig.” He’s an antisocial sort of fellow who’s not keen on leaving his house, but his solitary life is upended when he receives a phone call from his sister-in-law Lucy. John’s twin brother James has vanished.

James had worked as a police detective in the city of Cambridge, and Lucy thinks his disappearance must have something to do with a case he was working on. She asks John to impersonate his brother, walk into the police station, and look for clues as to why James disappeared.

But as soon as John enters the station sporting James’ name badge, he encounters a problem: Everyone at work expects him to start investigating a recent murder. John makes plenty of social missteps around the office, but his deductive reasoning allows him to start cracking cases with remarkable speed.

Ludwig comprises six episodes, following a murder-of-the-week formula with the mystery of James’ whereabouts serving as a minor subplot that ties the entire season together. In each episode John is presented with a case that requires him to exercise a different aspect of his puzzle-solving skills. His co-workers are mystified by the change that’s come over this guy that they think of as James, but they have to admit he gets results. As John falls into a routine of acting like a real policeman, Lucy gets agitated because he’s getting distracted from the task of finding her missing husband.

This series fits easily into the cozy mystery genre. There’s little on-screen violence, and the language isn’t objectionable. There’s not much realism to these murders, and the show isn’t trying to provide some larger social commentary. Rather, the murders in each episode offer a diverting problem that must be solved, much like the puzzles John published as Ludwig. However, the series isn’t really a whodunit because it doesn’t always give the audience enough clues to figure out the mystery for themselves. Instead we often get snippets of John using his powers of deduction to race through evidence that we’re only partially acquainted with.

Ludwig is a cleverly written series that possesses that dry British wit that reliably turns mildly awkward moments into comedic gold. The supporting cast members have their endearing moments, especially Izuka Hoyle and Gerran Howell, who play a somewhat jaded junior officer and her easily impressed sidekick respectively. But Mitchell’s performance as the socially inept John anchors the show’s comedy. He’s a ball of anxiety who can barely manage to navigate a parking lot without mishap, and his struggle to understand why “normal” people act the way they do offers constant amusement.

As Dorothy Sayers noted, the murder mystery is arguably the most popular genre of entertainment in both Britain and America, but with a constant flow of new books, series, and movies coming out all the time, it can be difficult to wade through all the options. Fans of classic murder-mystery TV—shows like David Souchet’s Poirot or Tony Shalhoub’s Monk—will probably find something to love in Ludwig. It checks just about all the boxes for ­enjoyable family entertainment. The mysteries are inventive. The dialogue is amusing. And the cast is exceedingly likable. It manages all that while avoiding the temptation to indulge in the violence and language that seem to characterize most prestige TV.

The murder-mystery genre might feel crowded, but there’s definitely room for this refreshingly funny show.