Was it just a red herring? Is Ms Fishers MODern Murder Mysteries (Seven, Thursdays at 8.30pm) actually a work of speculative fiction, not the crime drama we were promised?
Well, it certainly seems to be set in a parallel universe that looks like ours but isn't quite.
Is that a lighthouse in the background or are you just excited to see me? Geraldine Hakewill as Peregrine Fisher.Credit:Seven
Gritty realism is clearly not the territory this spin-off series of four telemovies is staking out. The plots run along much the same lines as your average episode of Scooby-Doo, only with a little more unresolved sexual tension thanks to the simmering attraction (more of a slow percolate, to be honest) between Peregrine and detective James Steed (Joel Jackson), who always arrives on the scene of the crime just after she does. The only thing missing is the face-mask reveal at the end.
When we first met Peregrine last week she was working as a hairdresser. The perm job she was doing on a client went horribly wrong because boyfriend Eric (James Mason) turned up with a new car, and Peregrine – he calls her Pear – took it for a spin. Which she found a turn-on. Which prompted her to climb into the back seat with Eric and, well, one thing led to another and before you know it a 10-minute break had turned into a lot of broken hair and Peregrine was out of a job.
But grieve not, dear viewer! No sooner was little orphan Perry back at the trailer park when a letter arrived informing her she must head to Melbourne to claim the inheritance – a gorgeous modernist pile in South Yarra, complete with Austin Healey convertible in the driveway – that had been left to her by her aunt Phryne, who has been missing since her plane crashed in New Guinea (that's code for "busy making a Miss Fisher movie in London").
Oddly enough, we also learnt that Phryne didn't even know Peregrine existed, but let's not dwell. Details, damn it, details.
Hostile at first, the Lady Adventuress Club of which Phryne was a key member soon welcomed Peregrine into the fold. It's like a gals-only version of the X-Men, a multinational collection of ladies with special powers – microbiology, fencing, botany, the all-important fashion design – with former spy Birdie Birnside (Catherine McClements) its Professor X.
Peregrine with Birdie (Catherine McClements, seated), Violetta (Louisa Mignone) and Samuel (Toby Truslove) in the Adventuresses Club.Credit:Seven
In the first telemovie we got the murder of a model in an upscale department store; in this week's second, it's the electrocution of a pop star called Duane and a girl called Gidget on live TV (it's a wonderfully comical and horrifying demise, involving a surfboard suspended above a portable pool); in the third, a girl is seemingly abducted by aliens while a scientist is murdered in a top-secret government facility that's playing around with hallucinogens.
In other words, Ms Fisher never met a '60s cliche it didn't like. I haven't seen the final episode, but if it doesn't give us a death by beehive while the Beatles are in town, I'll be a little disappointed.
Oh, it's ludicrous this show, but it's good-hearted with it. And if you're willing to suspend your disbelief for a couple of hours at a time, it's rather good fun too.
Just don't mistake it for a history lesson.
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