'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.