David Mitchell plays your next favorite oddball detective in Ludwig

One of the many reasons Peep Show worked as well and for as long as it did—the British comedy’s nine-season run is pretty remarkable considering its strict points-of-view presentation—was David Mitchell’s ability, as Mark, to always have the look in his eyes and demeanor of a man who feels like life is in his way. Everything—even, or especially, the good things—is a chore, an annoyance, and a hurdle, something he has to stomach rather than enjoy. If Christopher Moltisanti found “the fuckin’ regularness of life” to be “too fuckin’ hard” for him, Mark thought of it as a series of nonsensical nuisances that were far beneath him. This sort of put-upon, nervy air makes Mitchell the perfect lead of Ludwig, a BBC One dramedy—one that leans more toward comedy than drama—that aired last fall and lands on BritBox this week. 

But Mark is no John, Ludwig’s protagonist and the kind of shut-in who finishes his crosswords with the clean and confident strokes of a fancy fountain pen that would fit right into a Wes Anderson film (as would, come to think of it, his aesthetically pleasing display of books, chalkboard equations, and dusty-academic getup). Which is all to say that John isn’t, like that Peep Show character, kind of a dick. He’s easily annoyed, set in his ways, and prone to panic by the thought of interacting with another human, sure, but deep down he’s just a sweet and gentle nerd—a “puzzle setter” by profession, in fact, who goes by the pen name Ludwig. 

So when his identical twin brother James, a detective in Cambridge with an upbeat wife, Lucy (Philomena’s Anna Maxwell Martin, who’s great here), and son (played by Dylan Hughes), goes missing, it fits that a guy with his DNA who spends his days concocting puzzles would be the first person called to solve this one. Initially, John poses as his sibling just to retrieve a notebook of clues from James’ office, but he’s quickly pulled into a murder investigation. “If it were up to me, everything would be logical,” he gripes to Lucy on the phone after having an anxiety attack in front of a group of suspects. “The whole world. But it isn’t, is it? It doesn’t work that way. Things don’t always fit neatly into some ordered, structured, 15-by-15 grid like some sort of…puzzle,” he trails off, having the first of his many “eureka moments,” to quote his steadier partner Russell (a charming Dipo Ola). 

Soon enough, the mystery of James’ disappearance moves to the back burner for John (to the annoyance of Lucy, who decides to do her own solo snooping) as this new gig sparks a fire under him, and the show becomes a case-of-the-week comedy, with our awkward investigator falling into that tried-and-true character archetype: the underestimated and dismissed detective who always gets his man. Now, any setup like this is going to have its plot holes, something the show cheekily addresses now and then: Wouldn’t people start trusting this guy’s instincts, no matter how far-fetched, when he’s right every single time? Wouldn’t detectives, who are trained to pick up on body language, notice that this isn’t, you know, James?  And wouldn’t John telling higher-ups “I assume they’d done a how-did-they-die test,” as if he’s never heard of a post-mortem, raise red flags?