Former Death in Paradise star Ben Miller is looking back on the harsh criticism his time on the BBC One series received.

The crime comedy is now a staple of the BBC line-up and fairly warmly received, but its reviews were decidedly mixed when Miller debuted as DI Richard Poole all the way back in 2011.

In a recent chat with Digital Spy and other media about his new book The Boy Who Made the World Disappear, Miller explained that critics of the show simply don't understand its appeal to fans.

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"It's an extraordinary show," he said. "I think it's wonderful. It's been amazing for me personally. I don't know if you remember when it came out, it was battered. It got the worst reviews of anything I've ever been involved in. People were expecting Silent Witness or Scandi-noir, and it's pretty much... that's what's clever about it, it's pretty much the opposite of all of those things.

"It is a comedy on some levels, and the reason we got such bad reviews at the start is because the critics thought it was meant to be a drama and it's not actually. I really believed in it. I really believed in what we were doing, and we worked so hard on the tone of that first series.

"As you'd imagine, you'd do a scene and it would be too funny. It'd be too funny to sit in a show in which someone was getting murdered and there were people who were genuinely grieving that dead person.

"So then we'd do it more seriously. But if a bride is going to be thrown off the top floor of a building with a harpoon, it's not that serious either. We would do the scenes lots of different ways and I think that was one of the really interesting things. We worked so hard on getting that tone and it's such a particular, very, very hard tone to hit. And I think that's what’s so successful about it. It's just funny enough and just serious enough."

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The actor went on: "And it's quite meta in a way. I think even in one episode, we were summoning people for a denouement at the end and I remember somebody saying, 'Why did we do this?' and everyone was like, 'It's just what he likes to do'.

"It doesn't take itself at all seriously and that's one of the great things about it, and I think it's very underrated as a mystery show. They spend so much time figuring those stories out and my favourite thing when I was doing it is everyone used to say to me, 'I guessed the murderer every week. It's really obvious who the murderer is'.

"And I would say, 'No, it is by the time they announce it at the end. Then you know who it is. But you haven't known all the way through.' I used to do these live-Twitter things and no-one ever guessed it. No one would ever guess."

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The show is set for another big change in the upcoming series when The Royle Family star Ralf Little replaces Ardal O'Hanlon as the new Detective Inspector.

Death in Paradise returns to BBC One in January 2020.

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