'Return to Paradise' Starts Filming Down Under, Officially Kicking Off 'Death in Paradise's Next Spinoff
First, there was Death in Paradise, a little slice of sunshine froth set in the Caribbean on the island of Saint-Marie, where poor DI Richard Poole (Ben Miller) was sent to spend a couple of miserable seasons on a glorious paradise-like island solving murders until he himself was murdered in Season 3. Then there was Beyond Paradise, which began after Poole's replacement, DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall), who took over his position for the next three seasons, suddenly quit to follow his beloved Martha (Sally Bretton) back to Devon in the U.K. and set up shop solving mysteries in their version of paradise in the little town of Shipton Abbott. Since Goodman left, two more detectives have shipped out to Saint-Marie, DI Jack Mooney (Ardal O'Hanlon) and DI Neville Parker (Ralf Little), the latter of whom just exited the series. So it's not surprising there's now a new spinoff, Return to Paradise.... except it doesn't star either of them or anyone from Saint-Marie at all.
The new series, which is Death in Paradise's second official spinoff and the third series overall in what the BBC is insisting on calling the "Para-verse," is not related to the residents of Saint-Marie because it is not set on that island or in the U.K. Instead, it is set down under, in the wild paradise of Australia's Sapphire Coast in New South Wales, just about as far as you can get from Saint-Marie as it is from the U.K. The new series is less a direct spinoff of the parent series than a spiritual one, refashioning the show's original premise for a new location, that of a fish out of water detective forced to solve cases in one of the most beautiful places on Earth when in reality, they'd rather be just about anywhere else.
But the all-new cast does mean the series will do one thing the parent show has not managed thus far: the lead for Return to Paradise is the franchise's first female detective, with Anna Samson (Jack Irish) as DI Mackenzie Clarke.
