Conception

The show was created by Carly Brooks, who came up with the idea upon listening to the crime podcast Serial, and investigative journalism podcasts Undisclosed and Truth & Justice. Inspired by the marriage of the medium and genre to turn its listeners into active crime-solvers, she decided to create a television series along these lines. Brooks and Andy Brereton chose the gameshow whodunnit (aka playalong murder mystery) format.^[3]

The creative team pitched the show to Jo Street, Commissioning Editor of BBC Daytime, by having her play a game the two had written for a pilot. Brooks recalled: “We had a whiteboard and papers on the wall. For suspects, we printed out pictures of models from Google and gave them names, and I would read out the story". Street, a crime lover with a dog named Columbo, would successfully solve the murder and enjoy playing the game.^[3] Street said she loved the idea due to its ambitious and innovative nature. She thought the show struck the right balance between drama and quiz, and had faith in the murder mystery crafting ability of the development team.^[2]

Street and BBC Controller Dan McGolpin commissioned 20 episodes, each at 45 minutes in length.^[2] The show's pilot episode aired in 2016.^[3] The episodes air at 2:15 pm each weekday.^[3] The show's catchphrase is: "No one gets away with murder in Mortcliff!"^[3]

Street sought to use Midsomer Murders as a tonal influence for the show, and as a result placed the show within the 'Cosy Crime' genre in which violence is downplayed or treated humorously, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community.^[3] She liked how the format of this popular show allowed for murder while keeping the mood a bit ridiculous and light-hearted.^[3] Bodycombe, who led the construction of the first series' 20 cases, described it as "kinda a crossover between Cluedo and Midsomer Murders".^[4]

Puzzle crafting

While Armchair Detectives comes up with the basic outline of the each murder, they utilise in David Bodycombe and Dan Peake (who worked on 'unrelated clue-connecting' gameshow Only Connect) to turn their murders into complete puzzles. Their role is to meticulously scatter the complete picture of means, motive, and opportunity throughout the story in verbal (e.g. testimonial), physical, forensic, audio, visual, written, and other clues.^[3]

"They have a spreadsheet with all of our characters and the timeline of the story, and they plot out what every character is doing across all those four days. Even if they're not in the story and we don't see them, they plot that out. They send the Excel sheet to the writer and the writer can't go wrong then. If she wants to do something that's playful or bring someone into a scene, or if we are on set and we realise something doesn't quite work, we have that sheet and we know that this person can't be here at this time because it's plot significant where they are. If they're just away or asleep or whatever they tend to be doing, then they're not in the plot and we can play with them. We just have to make sure they're not doing anything dodgy, so we give them real lives for four days!"

— Creator and producer Carly Brooks, 2017 Den of Geek interview statement regarding the meticulousness of the writing process.

There is a fine line between clarity and obviousness, as well as subtlety and obscurity, which colours decisions. The difficulty of the show can reasonably vary between each episode.^[3] According to Den of Geek, the show has elements reminiscent of the Hidden Objects video game genre, in which players must search every inch of the screen (known as "pixel hunting" in gaming) to uncover all the clues.^[3] Den of Geek has also described the "dramatic dialogue" as more evocative of such video games than television detective shows due to the efficiency of its storytelling: practically every piece of dialogue and facial expression hints at a character's true or hidden motives.^[3]

Writing

While the format had been done in the past, Brooks felt that gameshow murder mysteries live on due to being entertaining and intriguing, putting viewers into a heightened emotional state of reevaluation, including quizzes and games, and allowing viewers to choose the level of activeness with which to digest the show – either sitting back and enjoying a passive TV drama to be surprised at the end or using problem-solving skills to be one step ahead of the detectives.^[3] UKGameShows notes that daytime BBC One viewers already have shown an affinity for this genre, with Father Brown being particularly popular.^[5]

Bodycombe confirmed that crucial plot points can be changed later in the writing process, noting that in "Cops and Robbers" some details were changed.^[6] The episode "Driving Miss Mortcliff", constructed by Peake, included a homage to a 2017 "Oscars snafu".^[7] Bodycombe devised "Six Letters Beginning with M".^[8] The butcher's shop in "Deerly Departed (Meat and Greet)" was originally called "The Chop Shop" in its writing stage.^[9] Peake recalled that during research he and Bodycombe did for the episode "Derby Day Death", he got "accidentally soaked in the office kitchen".^[10] That episode was the first one to air in the series that was constructed by Bodycombe.^[11] The episode "Finders Keepers" featured a homage to the British comedy series Detectorists by naming its suspects after characters from that show.^[12]

Peake notes that there are some clues that are written into a story that are never mentioned or revealed in the episode either by the confession scene, the contestants, or the host.^[9]

Casting and characters

Calman was chosen as host due to her history as a comedian, as well as her degrees in law and forensic science.^[13] The first series was recorded at the same time as Calman's appearances on Strictly Come Dancing.^[14]

DI Knight, a "silver-haired deadpan alpha male with a penchant for coffee and dad jokes that rarely land with his colleagues", was conceived by Brooks with the specific character trait of being a person her mum would have a crush on. Roger Nsengiyumva added a youthful presence and playfully mocking dynamic to his DC Slater character. Finally, Scene Of Crime Officer Simmons was written specifically to be a strong intelligent female character, who is personable and has a gallows sense of humour.^[3]

Brooks has stated that she desires there to be further development into the lives of the detective team, specifically a "Will they or won't they?" story between DC Slater and SOCO Simmons.^[3]

The 15 studio contestants were cast via crime fan communities.^[3] For instance, a couple from Ayr, who run the room escape company Riddle Rooms, were sent an email directly.^[15] Some of the contestants are real-life detectives. Brooks wanted to cast people who would simultaneously take the murders seriously and sincerely in an attempt to solve them, as well as embrace the humour and fiction of the show to have an enjoyable time solving them. According to Brooks, "You have to commit to the tone of the show to really understand the crimes". She deliberately avoided having a cash prize as she feared it would ruin the cooperative nature of the show and replace it with toxic competition.^[3]

Filming

Tiger Aspect chose to use East Lothian as the filming location of the fictional Mortcliff; areas featured include Tranent, Longniddry, Cockenzie/Port Seton, North Berwick, Inveresk, and Gullane. The production team filmed on location over a period of five weeks in summer 2017, and collaborated with the East Lothian's Filming Charter council on the shoot.^[16] The show did not comment on production while filming scenes, in order to not reveal any details that would ruin the mysteries.^[17] It was originally believed that the show would have a crew of 55, including 20 actors.^[17]

The set for the gameshow portion was designed by the show's designer.^[18] Filming for this part took place in two weeks, with three episodes filmed per day. A trial run was done before shooting began.^[15]

Future

Calman expressed an interest into seeing the show continue,^[19] but later confirmed on 16 July 2018 that a second series will not be made.^[20]

Endemol Shine UK, the production company that owns the Tiger Aspect label,^[21] has hopes for more international sales than they've had with the gameshow Pointless. UKGameShows notes that English-speaking countries can use the existing in-universe Mortcliff footage with a new host and contestants, while others might either dub the existing footage or reshoot it locally, and that in any scenario the difficult part (the crafting of cases) has already been done.^[5]

Series 1 (2017)