My Review of "Who Killed Santa? A Murderville Mystery"

Who Killed Santa? A Murderville Mystery is a one off episode from the Murderville Mystery TV series on Netflix. It's something that just came out in 2022 but I wasn't familiar with the concept until now. After watching this holiday special I'm inclined to check out the rest of the series.

The whole concept is a little bit different. We have a scripted storyline but we have an X factor with special guests appearing to ad lib their way into the story. They have no concept of what the story is or what's going on but they agreed to go with it. It so happens that these special guests are celebrities.

This holiday special starts off with Jason Bateman as himself. He's become police partner to Detective Terry Seattle. Their mission is to make sure that Santa is safe and to give presents to orphan children for Christmas. Of course this doesn't go as planned as you can tell from the title of the show.

Upon meeting Santa the lights go dark you hear some noise and when the lights come back on we see Santa on the ground with a candy cane to the chest. He was impaled by a sharpened candy cane and the team has to figure out who did it.

Through a serious of pretty funny scenarios Terry tries to help Jason figure out who the killer was. They get into precarious situations where Terry will get Jason do wild and outrageous things to help out with the case. It's very much like an improve comedy show and for me it works.

To add to the mix they brought in Maya Rudolph later in the game as well as Pete Davidson. I have to say the combination of Jason and Maya on this game is pretty fun. The two take it to the extreme and Maya knocks it out of the park whenever they put her into a funny situation. She's of course an Saturday Night Live alum so it's to be expected that her improvisation skills are through the roof.

None of the guests really take this show very seriously and have fun as a result of their goofing around. A lot of the fun comes from them making other people on the show break character. There are a number of scenes where Maya does something so outrageous that even the cast of the show break out laughing.

Oddly enough there is actually logical clues to help the audience and the guests figure out who the murderer really is. The clues are well placed like a board game so if you pay attention you can figure out who the murderer is through logic.

I'm not sure if the show worked because of the special guests they had on the show or if it's the concept of the show that got me. All I know was that I was having fun and became curious of the TV series after watching this episode. I'm sure if you give this show a chance you might have the same idea.

Overall, I had a really good time with this one. It's a very short episode so you don't have to worry about committing to too much time with this one. You'll kind of feel like you're participating in an escape room with some celebrities. If that's your bag then you're going to like this one. Also Maya Rudolph is immensely talented at improve. I have to give this off shoot episode a 7.5 out of 10. I think I could recommend this one to others and I may watch the first season as a result. Good job!