Death al Dente: A Gourmet Detective Mystery

It was really hard to ignore the blatant similarities. It was like having enjoyed the national brand and then buying the generic store brand version of something. It reminds you of the original, but not as good...and cheaper.

We've got the hard-nosed lady detective with the supermodel looks and the "charming wise-cracking consultant" who is ever-present, completely out of his element and always bickering with her while trying to get in her pants. On Castle, he always brings her a large coffee...even buys an expensive espresso machine for the 12th Precinct. Here he brings her a small. (Like I said...cheaper.)

Throw in the two goofball caucasian and ethnic "utility detectives" (complete with "exploding fist bumps"), activities focussing on the "murder board," the (also appropriately ethnic) female "coroner buddy" and the occasional appearance by a female tough-gal captain and there you have it. Here, however, it's the detective who's the one with the live-in mother and teenage daughter, not the pseudo-Castle.

It's Nathan Fillion's Castle with a food theme. I'm just trying to determine when Hollywood completely lost its creativity.

This series is nothing excited and not particularly well acted, but the chemistry between the leads is a bit charming. I'm glad it was a short series, as I probably wouldn't have watched many more of these. Only one left!

Dylan Neal our full time gourmet cook and part time amateur sleuth recommends a new chef who is working out well in Ben Wilkinson's Italian restaurant which is something of a bay area institution. But things are not going well in his marriage because wife Jordana Largy has been fooling around with that selfsame new chef Matt Hamilton.

Wilkinson is shot by someone who tried to break into his house and later he's finished off in the hospital. Someone clearly did not want this man to live. But there's more to this story than a bad love affair. There's a rumored fortune in diamonds from the old country and a lot of people are looking for them.

As mysteries go this one isn't all that hard to figure out. But in an unusual twist to the Hallmark mystery formula, the amateur detective is a guy who assist the professional woman, in this case SFPD homicide detective Brooke Burns. Neal and Burns have a nice chemistry though in this case another police detective is moving in on Burns.

Nice chemistry, but no real mystery.

I mentioned in reviewing an earlier installment that it seemed like these productions don't have a technical adviser because they seem to have no concept of police procedures. In this episode, Maggie executes an illegal search and later another. There are many other such problems. And this is not about police procedure but Steve commits blatant sexual harassment (Maggie's resulting tension is palpable), but Maggie just rolls with it.

But so it goes with most of the amateur detective movies. We don't watch them for good police procedure. It's just annoying for it to be so blatant.

Both leads have egos, but Henry's is huge. I can't believe actual police detectives stood there and let him boss them around including telling Steve to get lost.

The mystery in this one is not bad, but the hook in the series is the relationship between Maggie and Henry. That and their banter. So far as this installment begins they are still in stage of dancing around their feelings, but they are starting to recognize that there is something there. There is definite chemistry.

This third movie in the series is really fun and enjoyable since the formula, chemistry and characters are coming together well and the mystery unfolds well too. The similarities to "Castle" (which I loved for the first 7 series) are glaring though. The pairing of attractive, bossy female Detective and attractive, kinda goofy Writer (foodie blog), the two of them solving cases in the field while her TWO colleagues do the background work at the station and most of all the character, dialogue and humor of the Gourmet Detective. I could have sworn I was watching "Castle" during the whole sweet ending of the movie. I guess it's the "Canadian" version supposedly set in San Francisco but I'm getting used to and enjoying it as such.