LUDWIG - wed bbc 1 9pm - TV PACE NO SPOILERS

[Blondeshavemorefun]

New series on weekly - thanks @mum2jakie for the shout out

Puzzle setter John ‘Ludwig’ Taylor’s life is upended when his identical twin, DCI James Taylor, disappears in the new series coming to BBC iPlayer and BBC One

When John ‘Ludwig’ Taylor’s (David Mitchell) identical twin, James, disappears off the face of the earth, John takes over his brother’s identity in a quest to discover his whereabouts.

John has never married, never had a family and never really ventured further than his own front door.

Without a computer, mobile phone or even a television, he lives in quiet solitude, designing puzzles for a living, under the nom-de-plume of ‘Ludwig’.

However, filling the shoes of your identical twin is one thing - when your twin also happens to be a successful DCI leading Cambridge’s busy inner-city major crimes team the stakes are much higher.

John may be a master of all things cryptic, but can he crack the biggest puzzle of his life?

Joining David Mitchell in the ‘case-of-the-week’ crime comedy-drama is Anna Maxwell Martin (Motherland, Line of Duty), as Lucy Betts-Taylor, John’s sister-in-law and wife of his missing brother James.

Also joining the cast are Dipo Ola (Landscapers, We Hunt Together), Gerran Howell (Catch-22, Suspicion), Izuka Hoyle (Boiling Point, Big Boys), Dylan Hughes (Malory Towers, Maternal), and Dorothy Atkinson (Mum, The Gold).

I think fundamentally it’s about the murders and the puzzle solving.

I think that’s what is so escapist and satisfying about this genre, the light meringue of a pleasing plot.

Another thing that I like about it is that it’s not gritty. It is cosy murder of the old school. So even though the crime at the centre would be an absolute abomination if it happened in real life, we all benefit from the murder-mystery convention - if you like, the Agatha Christie tradition – so we don’t dwell on what murder really is, on the horrific nature of the crime.

We focus on the context and the mystery and the play of human emotions that leads to it.

In Ludwig we don’t dwell on the fact that it’s murder any more than in a game of Cluedo you’d start thinking, ‘But how awful for Doctor Black’s family. He must be so missed.’

Down with this awful practice of showing excerpts from next week's show at the end! I don't want to know; I'll watch it next week!

Indeed we did find out who Sinclair was

I enjoyed that - clever plot

Tho would a body smell that bad after 24hrs

Felicity looks amazing at almost 80

E2 recap

www.whattowatch.com/features/ludwig-episode-2-recap-is-lady-bryce-a-killer-and-whos-sinclair

I always turn over /stop the recording as I don't want to see next weeks and any spoilers

Yeah, me too. I'm sure the body wouldn't smell. But when you've suspended belief for so much, it seems a relatively minor point! 🙂

Felicity Kendall is still very attractive
Classic features
I said that about the body , it wouldn't smell that badly after a day or two , but maybe it was the damp smell that was more overpowering ( or rats or something!)
Clever though. He is a details man !

It's very clever how he works things out

Tho when the pot plant was clean I said to myself that it had been washed due to blood

I was right

Felicity Kendall was rumoured to have had lots of facial surgery, but she insisted it was just Botox.

Why would a group of strangers think this was best solution, given that it could easily be collaborated if they all told a small lie, that he ran from them, tripped and hit his head. Why would they not take the body to the place they drove his car to and throw it off the cliff because the injuries would fit. Why were none of them anxious and looking bored when at that team meeting - no body had committed such a crime before. And how, collectively did they think, I know we’ll cut a whole in the wall and reattach the wall parts then redecorate it. Then make the pot look new - all in a few hours?

And to notice such a tiny bit of wallpaper wasn't aligned

But yes could have dumped buddy off cliff. Been more simpler 😂

Esp as drove car there

The wallpaper was really daft. They could have made it a bit more plausible with a sliding wooden panel, or something like that.

They could have had one of those bookcases that revolve around!

Like scooby doo 😂

Yes. It had a scooby doo feel to it last night
If it hadn't been for you pesky criminals I tried to employ ( rip off )

My thoughts on episode 1: “I love you. I always have.”. I love how the show is done, how the scenes and dialogue flow and the artful exposition. It’s a huge bear of mine that no-one does tv properly anymore, it’s all pay-off scenes and emotions without the substance or build-up. We get a real sense of the warmth and deep connection between Lucy and John, and James even though he isn’t even there. There’s no clunky flashbacks of their romance, or of John pining but his love for her is reflected in his memory of her first date with James. Or even just his willingness to go completely out of his comfort zone to help her. I really like it. I thought it was great how they conveyed how overwhelming the office environment is for someone like John. A bit like in The Father, see it from his perspective.

Episode 2: Again, thoroughly enjoyed it and I laughed a lot in this one! The workshop facilitator reminded me of a few work situations. I liked how John was so easily baited by the mention of a cryptic phone call, “Cryptic how?”. I like the thriller aspect and tension created of who is going to catch him out, cigarette colleague, Russell Carter his over eager colleague or his boss? I liked how Lucy used her smarts to uncover the missing page through rubbings, very clever! Not John’s type of clever, she’s resourceful. Can we trust Russell Carter? I didn’t like the scene between Lucy and her son, again another thing that gets my goat about modern tv, where they show a deep emotional scene between two people but we don’t actually see them interacting. We just see it cutting between one person’s face and the other’s, they might not have even filmed it together and filmed their lines separately!

I wasn’t too bothered by the nursery story nonsense, it provides a bit of lighthearted mystery and resolution within one episode. It made sense to me that three desperate people who had hung all their hopes and money or other people’s money in this last chance would just be angry enough to chase the con artist down. And that Lady Bryce would suggest the hidden pantry - moving a body is hard, and putting it in the car would create a lot more evidence!

I am watching the thread that’s just called “Ludwig” and skimming, one of the posts said “I miss it already”. Well that won’t be me or @Blondeshavemorefun 😎. Looking forward to this taking us up to the beginning of November. TV pace allows enjoying it for what it is, and also gives a sense of time and space in this part of the year for me.

If you want to binge something, we’re also watching the Turkish Detective which is also a bit silly, but not as good as Ludwig in terms of enjoying the layers, scenes and script.

Indeed @BakeOffRewatch No bingeing here

Nice to watch weekly and anticipation of each Episode

And a chat about each one

I did watch Turkish detective. Sure I did a thread on it

Agree with most of what you say, @BakeOffRewatch , and as you say, appointment TV is fun. I started following The Turkish Detective too, but gave up on after two or three eps; the lead old man was great, and the best thing in it, but the stories weren't so hot, I thought. And I was irritated by the lazy use of English in much of it, as if they were scared to make it "too subtitled".

Wonder if married to an identical twin if you fancy the other brother

And to notice such a tiny bit of wallpaper wasn't aligned

While this was a bit of a clumsy device, remember this really isn't a show about murders as much as it is about problem-solving. And in this case, it was a (massive!) 'spot the difference' puzzle for John to solve.

So showing how his ability to solve puzzles will help to solve a murder.

That scene at the beginning where Ludwig was reading out the acrostic from the letter and saying that he's always loved her, they were showing her face as if she had always wanted that to be true and was disappointed to find out he was just reading a letter. So I suspect we're supposed to think there is something building up between them (that will either go back underground when the twin is found, or something will come of it if not?)

There have been stories I've heard over the years of people running off with their partners twin ! Nobody I know personally though
I think that John always ' held a torch ' for Lucy , but his brother was more charismatic
( only a guess , not a spoiler )

That's certainly how it looks to me.

But to us it didnt look any diff

It was so minute

Agree John loves her

I also thought was telling when mum was crying nye and the missing brother said he would see what was wrong with mum and then shut the doors for a chat

Like shutting John out

Maybe missing twin was selfish

That's why it took so long to spot it. He had the sense that something was different, but couldn't work out what it was because each individual item was the same: it was the background which had shifted. It's a really nice idea in story terms but I don't think it was well executed visually for the viewers' benefit.