STAGE MANAGED (ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING, SEASON THREE)

If you're looking for one thing that 'Only Murders In The Building' really does well, it's building expectations for the next season.

Season One ended with one hell of a cliffhanger, with Selena Gomez's heroine Mabel Mora sporting a bloodsoaked jumper, apparently implicated in the murder of Jayne Houdyshell's Bunny Folger, the head of her Manhattan apartment building's residents board.

When that murder was solved by Mabel and her partners in true crime podcasting, Steve Martin's Charles Haden Smith and Martin Short's Oliver Puttnam, we moved onto another murder that was even more sensational.

At the climax to Season Two, fans were stunned to see the show jump several months forward to Paul Rudd playing a Hollywood actor Ben Glenroy.

Ben dramatically collapsed onstage in a Broadway production of a murder mystery Oliver was directing called 'Death Rattle'..

His co-stars included Charles, while Mabel was among the audience who gasped when Ben collapsed.

Intriguingly moments before the shocking turn of events, Charles appeared to be feuding with Ben before the curtain lifted.

When Season Three gets underway, we realise any assumptions about Glenroy's death are premature.

The new season begins several months before the play's disastrous opening night, with Oliver holding auditions.

Desperate for a hit that will revive his Broadway directorial career, he's bowled over by an audition by Meryl Streep's Loretta Durkin and decides to cast her in the key role of the nanny to three triplets suspected of murder.

We skip forward to the first read through by the cast with the lead man, Ben Gilroy's rampant ego proving hard for everyone to stomach.

Loretta is overcome with nerves during the table read and delivers her lines poorly, prompting Ben to lean on Oliver to fire her.

Oliver refuses.

The writers jump forward again in the opening episode by four months to the aftermath of Ben's collapse onstage.

As the cast gathers glumly in a state of shock at their after show party, Mabel suggests to Charles and Oliver that the apparent poisoning of Ben would be perfect for a new series of their popular podcast.

However her idea is quickly buried when Ben turns up, having been revived en route to hospital.

The star makes a huge deal of gifting his fellow cast members with custom made handkerchiefs, acknowledging he had been rude and arrogant to them during rehearsals.

Returning to his apartment in the Arconia Building, where Charles, Oliver and Mabel also live, all appears to be back on track until they subsequently discover Ben's body in a lift having plunged to his death.

Attending his funeral, Mabel, Charles and Oliver speculate that someone may have pushed the actor.

Charles and Mabel come across Adrian Martinez's Gregg Rivera, who claims to be the victim's bodyguard.

However he turns out to be a disturbed fan of the star who kidnaps them, intending to torture them into confessing his theory that they were behind the murder.

However the NYPD track Gregg down just in time to rescue Charles and Mabel, with Gerrard Lobo's Detective Biswas arresting him for Ben's murder.

Mabel, though, isn't convinced that Gregg was responsible, noting he had in his possession a handkerchief that Ben had during the play which was identical to another he was clutching when he plunged to his death in the lift.

Believing there's material for a new podcast, she and Charles set about delivering it.

Oliver, though, is more reluctant to get involved because he's still preoccupied by his play.

Stressed out by what happened on opening night, he has a minor heart attack after running into Noma Dumezweni's acerbic theatre critic Maxine at Ben's funeral and learning how much she hated the show.

Believing his career to be in tatters, Oliver suddenly has a moment of either extreme folly or inspiration.

He hits on the idea of turning 'Death Rattle' into a musical - somehow managing to persuade Linda Edmond's legendary Broadway producer Donna DeMeo and her unhealthily clingy son, Wesley Taylor's Cliff to invest in it.

Intoxicated by the idea, he turns his back on a new Only Murders podcast.

At times, he even actively works against it.

Michael Cyril Creighton's Arconia resident Howard is retained as Oliver's assistant on the new project.

His love interest, Jason Veasey's Jonathan has a part in the show.

Along with Charles and Loretta, Ashley Park's ambitious young actress Kimber Min and Don Darryl Rivera's Bobo Malone round out the cast of the new production.

During rehearsals, Oliver falls for Loretta whose agent is Ben's adopted brother, Jeremy Shamos' Dickie.

Loretta harbours her own secrets which Oliver starts to discover as they date.

Initially he keeps them secret from Mabel and Charles.

With his buddy fixated on creating a musical, Charles is increasingly sucked into rehearsals.

He has a particular crisis of confidence about his ability to deliver "a patter song" at a key moment in the show.

Charles also has romantic struggles.

He starts to regret a decision to let a make-up artist from his old hit TV show 'Brazzos,' Andrea Martin's Joy move in with him.

He's especially disturbed by the hundreds of exotic fish she brings with her and the way she scolds one called President McKinlay.

These distractions in Charles and Oliver's lives mean Mabel is left to fend for herself on their amateur sleuth podcast.

However it gets to a point where her frustration really boils over and she decides to fly solo.

Initially Mabel is approached by the trio's podcasting nemesis, Tina Fey's Cinda Canning to partner with her.

Cinda has restyled herself as a Gwyneth Paltrow style lifestyle guru but it's clear it's just a grift.

But while the conversation plants the idea of going it alone in her head, Mabel rejects Cinda's approach and teams up instead with Jesse Williams' filmmaker Tobert who was chronicling Ben's life for a documentary and has some mysterious footage of his last few hours.

What begins as a shared interest also kindles a romance.

Will Mabel heal her rift with Charles and Oliver and get their friendship back on track to crack the case?

Will all three be able to navigate complex love lives?

Will 'Death Rattle - the Musical' be a massive turkey?

And who will be revealed as Ben's killer?

For two seasons, Steve Martin and John Hoffman's Hulu and Disney+ show has been a wonderfully light, frothy watch - trading on the chemistry and superb comic timing of its three leads.

The show's writers are, however, clearly conscious in Season Three that the formula may need shaking up to stay fresh.

Rather commendably, they try to do just that with a plot that mostly flits between the Arconia building and the Broadway theatre where 'Death Rattle' is being staged

However while there is fun to be had in Season Three, the show doesn't quite feel as satisfying as before.

Part of the problem lies in the pulling of its greatest assets - Mabel, Charles and Oliver - in different directions.

As their characters independently go about their business, you miss Gomez, Martin and Short just hanging out and bouncing ridiculous murder theories off each other like they did before.

You have to wait a long time for that to eventually happen and when they do, it only serves to underscore what the show has been missing.

While there are moments of comic inspiration in the show throughout Season Three, the gag count also appears to have dropped.

While the show is still funny, it's not as funny as before.

The writing team of John Hoffman, Sas Goldberg, Ben Smith, Joshua Allen Griffith, Matteo Borghese, Rob Turbovsky, JJ Philbin, Tess Morris, Noah Levine, Madeleine George, Ben Philippe, Jake Schnesel, Pete Swanoson, Siena Streiber and Elaine Ko plough through the murder mystery but the show has lost some sparkle.

It misses its central trio behaving like a team.

In spite of this, Gomez, Martin and Short remain a joy to watch - especially when they are together.

Martin, in particular, earns the biggest laughs of the season - an episode where he encounters a condition actors call "the white room" is especially funny.

However you wish there was more of these forays into surreal humour.

Short has fun as a romantic lead as Oliver becomes involved with Meryl Streep's Loretta.

Streep seems to be enjoying herself too, bringing a sweetness to the role of Loretta but creating enough mystery to keep you guessing about her character.

Gomez continues to deliver her punchlines with her trademark sassiness but when Mabel complains at one point about being abandoned to do the podcast on her own, you share her frustration.

Rudd is a good addition too to the cast, revelling in the role of egomaniacal B list Hollywood star.

Williams, Creighton, Park, Veasey, Dumezweni, Rivera, Lobo, Martinez, Edmond, Taylor and Shamos provide solid support.

It is also nice to see Fey, Andrea Martin's makeup artist Joy Payne, Jane Lynch's stunt double Sazz Pataki, Jackie Hoffman's grouchy Arconia resident Uma Heller, James Caverly's Theo Dimas and Da'Vibe Joy Randolph's exasperated Detective Donna Williams return.

Although it has to be said Nathan Lane's Teddy Dimas is missed.

Matthew Broderick and Mel Brooks continue a tradition in the show of celebrities appearing as and sending up themselves like Sting and Amy Schumer in the past.

In an episode where he almost swipes Charles' part in the musical, Broderick rather amusingly pretends he's a method actor.

Their cameos, of course, inevitably bring back memories of Brooks' comedy 'The Producers' which itself became a hit musical.

Although it has to be said 'Death Rattle' doesn't quite hit those comic heights.

Under the direction of John Hoffman, Adam Shankman, Chris Koch, Chebien Dabis, Shari Springer Bergman, Robert Pulcini and Jamie Babbit, 'Only Murders In The Building' remains a handsome production that really exploits the best New York has to offer as a location.

And while fans will be relieved how, contrary to expectations, the show opens the door to a fourth season, you hope lessons will have been learned from what has been an amusing, if slightly disappointing third outing.

Having got the gang back together, let's not split them up again.

Sometimes winning formulas just shouldn't be tampered with - especially now that 'Only Murders In The Building' has an equally amusing rival amateur sleuth show to contend with in the shape of 'Poker Face'.

The cliffhanger at the end of Season Three has exciting potential.

So let Mabel, Charles and Oliver do what they do best.

Let them bumble their way into revealing the next killer.

But crucially, let them do it as a team.

(Season Three of 'Only Murders In The Building' was made available for streaming on Hulu in the US and on Disney+ in the UK and Ireland between August 8-Octiober 3, 2023)

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STAGE MANAGED (ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING, SEASON THREE)

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