The first season of Death and Other Details is made up of ten installments and will debut on Hulu with a two-episode premiere on Tuesday, January 16. Through its carefully integrated clues and meticulous plotline, the drama invites viewers to solve a murder mystery from the comfort of their own homes. Taking place aboard a Mediterranean ocean liner, passenger Imogene Scott must prove her innocence when she finds herself a prime suspect in the case.
Heidi Cole McAdams and Mike Weiss serve as the showrunners, creators, and executive producers of Death and Other Details. McAdams is known for The 100 and Stumptown, while Weiss has worked on projects such as Chicago P.D. and The Mentalist. The series stars Violett Beane, Mandy Patinkin, Lauren Patten, Rahul Kohli, Angela Zhou, Hugo Diego Garcia, Pardis Saremi, and Linda Emond.
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Screen Rant interviewed Heidi Cole McAdams and Mike Weiss about the inspiration behind the series and the process of ensuring that all clues are fair to the audience.
Heidi Cole McAdams & Mike Weiss Talk Death And Other Details
Screen Rant: I am such a big fan of this show already. I have to start by asking, what was the inspiration behind Death and Other Details?
Mike Weiss: The inspiration behind the series was a couple of things. First, it was the murder mystery genre. Heidi and I have been friends for a decade, and the pilot of this show was actually the very first thing that we wrote together. We knew we wanted to work together, and so we were figuring, “What is the right story for us to combine all the various things that we’re interested in? Where does that Venn diagram line up?” It turned out to be a stylish murder, in this case, with season 1 being set on a restored 1940s ocean liner that is sailing the Mediterranean.
In a show like this that literally has details in the title, how often during the writing and filming process did you find yourself having to go back and make adjustments so that nothing was contradictory?
Mike Weiss: There are still some changes that I’d love to make right now.
Heidi Cole McAdams: It helps guide everything that we did from the writing to the production design to the costumes to the actor’s performance. It was kind of like a mantra for our show. We went back all the time. You change one little thing in Episode Seven, and all of a sudden, you’re going back to Episode 2, and you’re making a change. Fortunately, we wrote all of the episodes before we started shooting, so we were able to make sure that we made those details line up because they matter.
Mike Weiss: When you work with a production designer, like James Philpott, or a costume designer, like Mandi Line, and you work with this incredible group of actors, even though the scripts are written, they’re pointing out, “This detail in this script could actually line up a little bit better.” You’re constantly refining, and, luckily, we worked with a massive team that cared as much about the details as we did.
I really enjoyed the opening credits and the transitions throughout them. Did you talk with the editors and the artists about what you wanted to visually communicate in that opening sequence?
Heidi Cole McAdams: We worked with this company called Digital Kitchen that is just extraordinarily talented. They built that whole thing, but we let them in on some of the clues and twists and things for the series so that they could bury some fun little hints in our sequence. One of the things we love so much about the murder mystery genre is the play along and the idea of how, when I’m reading or watching a murder mystery, I’m trying to figure it out all the time. We wanted to make sure that we were playing fair with the audience and that we put details in there that our detectives at home could maybe play along with and help figure out the murder mystery.
Mike, do you feel like your time on shows such as Chicago P.D. and The Mentalist, which also rely heavily on mysteries, gave you a good foundation to cultivate a series like this?
Mike Weiss: Oh, yeah. I’ve worked with some of the most talented writers, I think, in town, and learned as much as I could from them. You also learn on set and in the edit room, “Oh, that clever twist is not as clever as I thought it was going to be. Maybe I should have set it up better in Act One to have it pay off better in Act Four.” You learn a thousand weapons, which, hopefully, I brought to bear on the show.
About Death And Other Details
Set amidst the glamor of the global elite, “Death And Other Details” centers on the brilliant and restless Imogene Scott (Violett Beane), who finds herself in the wrong place/wrong time (okay, it was kinda her fault) and becomes the prime suspect in a locked room murder mystery. The setting? A lavishly restored Mediterranean ocean liner. Suspects? Every pampered guest and every exhausted crew member. The problem? To prove her innocence, she must partner with a man she despises—Rufus Cotesworth (Mandy Patinkin), the world’s greatest detective.
Check out our interview with stars Violett Beane and Lauren Patten, as well.
Death and Other Details
Death and Other Details is a mystery series created for Hulu by Mike Weiss and Heidi Cole McAdams. Aboard a luxury cruise liner, Imogene Scott accidentally finds herself at the center of a murder mystery and ends up as the prime suspect. To clear her name, she must team up with the man she hates the most, Detective Rufus Cotesworth.
- Release Date
- January 16, 2024
- Cast
- Mandy Patinkin , violett beane , Linda Emond , Jayne Atkinson , Lauren Patten , David Marshall Grant
- Genres
- Crime , Drama , Mystery
- Rating
- Not Yet Rated
- Seasons
- 1
- Creator(s)
- Mike Weiss , Heidi Cole McAdams
- Writers
- Mike Weiss , Heidi Cole McAdams
- Streaming Service(s)
- Hulu
- Directors
- Marc Webb , Dinh Thai , Yangzom Brauen , David Petrarca
- Showrunner
- Mike Weiss , Heidi Cole McAdams
