'Miss Scarlet' Starts Over in Season 5 Premiere "The Rival"

The Duke is dead, long live the Duke. Though the fictional character who used to hold a spot in the series title has not shuffled off this mortal coil by the end of the Miss Scarlet Season 5 premiere, he is really most sincerely gone. It's hard to overstate the seismic shift his exit (and that of leading man Stuart Martin) means for the show. The entire premise of The Series Formerly Known As Miss Scarlet & the Duke was built around the relationship in the show's title, and figuring out what this new solo series will look like will undoubtedly take more than an episode or two. 

Season 5 isn't off to a horrible start as new beginnings go. The premiere, "The Rival," has a lot to get through in 60 minutes: writing out William, introducing his new replacement, DI Alexander Blake, showing us Eliza's reaction to both those things, and cramming a case on top of it all. When an episode has to serve that many functions, it's usually not a particularly great episode in and of itself; however, it's not clear there's any real way it could have been. The actual test of the series' new format will come in the next few weeks as the show settles into its new identity.

As such, the premiere operates in a strange, liminal space. An episode that bridges both the old world and the new must provide closure even as it opens up new avenues for the series to explore. But while the hour works as an introduction to the show's new leading man, as usual, it doesn't offer much emotional insight into the series' heroine. For a show that's literally rebranded itself with her name, it's...let's say it's not a particularly auspicious beginning to this new era.

To its credit, Miss Scarlet doesn't handwave the Duke's disappearance, revealing his goodbye letter, which also includes a marriage proposal alongside news of his promotion in New York. Eliza turns it down, fearing his new role as Superintendent in the Manhattan force would mean she'd have to give up her career. (Does she ask him about this? Who can say?) Unsurprisingly, the show eschews any direct romantic reflections from her; we only hear about the proposal because Nash guesses it. But Eliza is suddenly even more determined to turn her broken heart into...career success. After all, if she can't succeed as a detective in the way she's always dreamt of, then what is her life of self-imposed loneliness all for? 

On a different season, one where Martin was still around, this could have been an intriguing twist about how Eliza comes to understand that the idea of "having it all" is only ever used as a myth meant to oppress women or how the two of them find a middle ground together between the axes of their respective stubborn pride. Unfortunately, we are in this season, so we see Eliza frustrated and depressed, desperately trying to prove herself all over again. 

It is somewhat comforting that "The Rival" isn't the overt series reboot. But while this episode doesn't erase the show's past, it does feel like a reset in many respects. Eliza, after multiple seasons of relative professional success, is back to square one without the Yard's help in accessing cases and clients. (Maybe even beyond that — this premiere really conveys how much her preexisting relationship with William was necessary to cover for the wild presumption and occasional obstruction she regularly engages in.)

We're also back to square one regarding the show's central relationship. Even further than that, since Eliza and William were close long before he ever went to work for the Yard. She and Blake are straight-up adversarial for most of the hour, though he at least acknowledges her evident intellect and skill. Stars Kate Phillips and Tom Durant Pritchard have largely unremarkable chemistry. However, that may be because Eliza is written as the most obnoxious version of herself during all their scenes together. (No fun in enemies to lovers if they don't dislike each other a bit first, I guess!) 

To Durant Pritchard's credit, Blake holds his own against Eliza, recognizing her schemes even as he solves the case faster than she does. Blake is more interesting than most (read: me) probably expected: a well-traveled single dad who speaks multiple languages and has been burned in the past by working with private detectives. (His argument about why he doesn't want to work with Eliza — or anyone like her — is more than fair!) Fitzroy immediately has a crush, and Blake's not sexist about Eliza's profession, which is a relief after spending any time with the reliably odious Detective Phelps. 

Blake also has a daughter, an addition that feels more than a bit on the nose. It offers a built-in family and a convenient end-run around many of the existential life questions our heroine is wrestling with, should they embark on any romance. Though we don't even know the kid's name yet, so I suspect we're far away from stepparent territory. 

Miss Scarlet has never been known for featuring intellectually rigorous or particularly interesting cases of the week. But the mystery at the heart of "The Rival" is deathly dull, involving a disappeared earl who's believed to have murdered the housemaid he was having an affair with, who may or may not have returned in time to rob his former home. The format of this week's mystery is the only interesting thing; its story is told in a partial flashback format, which simultaneously relates the story of Blake and Eliza's first meeting as it details her initial involvement in the case*. 

(*There's a genuinely hilarious moment when Eliza's version of the story paints her — and her relationship with Phelps — in a warmer light than is perhaps deserved. More of this snarky self-awareness, please!) 

The episode ends with Eliza returning to visit Patrick Nash in prison, contemplating her unhappiness: William's gone, Blake insists he won't work with her, Ivy's out with Mr. Potts, and Eliza's alone. Again. That seems to bother her for the first time in a long time. For so long, she's embraced the idea that any sacrifice in terms of her personal life was worth it for the sake of her professional ambitions. But now that she's been cut off from the Yard, and her professional future looks bleaker than in some time, she's suddenly wondering whether it was all worth it. It's the sort of introspection many of us (read: me) probably would have liked to see from her before now, but we'll take what we can get.

Elsewhere, Blake heads home to his young daughter with the family's battered copy of Treasure Island in hand. I'm admittedly curious about how he ended up a single father and how he's managed to avoid marrying again with a kid this young. However, this show is called Miss Scarlet, and those probably aren't the things I'm supposed to be most interested in asking about right now, are they?

Welcome to a new era, folks. Let's see where we go from here. 

Miss Scarlet Season 5 airs on most local PBS stations and streams on the PBS app weekly on Sundays at 8 p.m. ET. All episodes are available for PBS Passport members and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel to binge before their on-air broadcast.