My wife was a big fan of the just-completed first season of “Elsbeth” on CBS. I watched with her for a few weeks and found it enjoyable, with Carrie Preston very good as the title character, but didn’t consider it Must See TV.
In the episodes I saw, I was particularly disappointed by the ongoing subplot about a DOJ agent in Chicago using Elsbeth — who’s already investigating murders in New York — to look into possible corruption by Wendell Pierce’s police captain character. A show like “Elsbeth” doesn’t need anything more than its main story line centered on a clever investigator playing cat and mouse with the obvious suspect (played by a different guest star each week) until turning up the final piece of evidence that nails them.
Like “Poker Face” — in which Natasha Lyonne plays another very smart, highly observant, but disarmingly quirky fact finder — “Elsbeth” is clearly a descendant of “Columbo.” But its creators (who also made “The Good Wife”) should remember Peter Falk’s character never strayed from his complete focus on solving the crime, except for a few anecdotes about his wife now and then.
Perhaps the producers have already come to the same conclusion, as they may have wrapped up that subplot toward the end of the season. If so, I may give “Elsbeth” another try when it starts its second season in the fall. Such a change would also enable viewers like me to watch the episodes in any order without the constraint of the irrelevant concurring storyline.