CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Death In Paradise on BBC1: There'll be trouble in Paradise if rude new DI Mervin doesn't cheer up soon
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Death in Paradise (BBC1). Rating:. Excuse me, but there’s supposed to be a dress code on the Caribbean isle of Saint Marie: suit and tie, starched collar and buttoned-up manners. A detective can’t just slouch into the station wearing a shapeless bucket hat that makes him look like a reject from an Oasis tribute band. It’s not done.
![[Don Gilet (pictured) is the new lead actor in BBC One's Death in Paradise]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/22/21/93409155-14219457-Don_Gilet_pictured_is_the_new_lead_actor_in_BBC_One_s_Death_in_P-a-42_1734903987319.jpg)
Don Gilet, a familiar face from Holby City and EastEnders, was making few friends as he became the fifth British policeman to settle reluctantly into the job, on Death In Paradise. DI Mervin Wilson was meant to be heading back to England after a private break on the island, when he was hauled off the plane and appointed the successor to DI Neville Parker (Ralf Little).
![[Gilet as DI Mervin Wilson. The character will grow on us, but he'd better do so quickly]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/22/21/93408169-14219457-Gilet_as_DI_Mervin_Wilson_The_character_will_grow_on_us_but_he_d-a-43_1734903987321.jpg)
How the locals thought they could get through Christmas without a detective to solve the annual spate of festive killings is a mystery in itself. Mervin complained that the pace of island life was too slow for him, but he wasn’t saying that once the mortuary started filling up with men dressed in Santa outfits.
Mervin didn’t have a good word to say for the place, in fact. The phone signal, the accommodation, the air con, he moaned about all of it, until DS Naomi Thomas (Shantol Jackson) pulled him up: ‘Do you have to keep criticising every single thing? Because when you do, it is very hard for us not to take it personally.’.
