'Whitstable Pearl' Is a Cool Seaside Mystery Series For Summer

On the surface, Acorn TV's new series, Whitstable Pearl, seems to be yet another "lots of deaths in a small English town magically solved by common citizens" series. The genre is so famous that it's spawned multiple parodies, from McSweeney's "Help! I Live In A Quiet English Village" to The New Yorker's "British Mystery Series That I Would Watch," to "Your Guide To Not Getting Murdered In A Quaint English Village." The series is even described as "cozy" in the marketing materials, and the promotional images are all of a perfect little seaside town.

But blessedly, Whitstable Pearl holds a secret: Its main protagonist is not some unlikely little crime solver masquerading as an overlooked middle-aged busybody. Pearl Nolan (the "Pearl" of the series title) may currently work as a restaurant owner and seafood caterer. However, she's a former professional, a bonafide former detective whose life didn't go quite as planned. She may have had to give up her crime-solving career to be a mom and a caretaker, but she's not about to bury those dreams, letting her training work for her as a side hustle as a private investigator.

It may seem a small thing, but at the show's first two episodes prove, it changes the tone of the series to one that's a little less heavy on the quaint and a whole lot more interested in how we find ways to live when the life we planned doesn't work out how we thought it would.