(TV SERIES) Dead Boy Detectives Season 1 - A Fun and Light Detective Story Focusing on Solving Supernatural Related Crimes

As usual, Netflix has provided many new shows that we could choose from, week in week out. And this series was one of those that I was interested in. It was released on 21 April but with so many other options, I only got the chance to start watching earlier this week and finished it two nights ago. All right, I will just get to it then.

Brief Story Line

Edwin Paine (George Rexstrew) and his partner Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri - The Lodge TV series etc) were a couple of ghosts who decided to stay on earth instead of going to the after life. They formed Dead Boy Detectives agency to help solve mysteries involving the supernaturals, while trying to avoid being taken to where they belonged. After freeing Crystal Palace (Kassius Nelson - Hollyoaks soap opera series etc) from demonic possession, the boys went to solve another mystery in the small town of Port Townsend in the US based on Crystal's persuasion.

She later stayed in a rented room above a butcher shop owned by Jenny Green (Briana Cuoco - The Flight Attendant TV series etc) with another tenant Niko (Yuyu Kitamura) who lived across her. Due to some reasons, Edwin and Charles had no choice but to stay in the town where they would encounter a lot of crimes and got into altercations with a witch Esther Finch (Jenn Lyon - Claws TV series etc). However, their little operation somehow reached the Lost and Found department in the Afterlife, managed by Night Nurse (Ruth Connell - Supernatural TV series etc). She was adamant that both of them should return to the Afterlife.

So what would happen to Edwin and Charles? You could find out in the first season of this series.

End of Brief Story Line

Well that was nice! I had fun watching this series as it was exactly what I had expected with supernatural cases to be solved by two old ghosts who looked youthful as they died at young age. The series was more exciting with the appearance of Esther Finch who tried her best to get revenge on the boys and other parties in the mix. So it was not only solving one case per episode but had a large story arc that made it more enjoyable.

I had never seen the two lead cast before but I thought they were quite spot on in their roles. In addition to those names I mentioned above, there were also some recurring cast like Lukas Gage (Road House 2024 remake etc) as the Cat King, Michael Beach (Saw X etc) as Tragic Mick, Joshua Colley as Monty and few others. Obviously it would not be fun without the appearance of characters from The Sandman. In case you are wondering, this series was set in the same universe. It was based on the comic of the same title by Neil Gaiman and Matt Wagner published under DC comics. Oh, I almost forgot that I have seen the Dead Boy Detectives appeared in one of the episodes of Doom Patrol series, but they were portrayed by different cast then. I read that it was supposed to be picked up as series by HBO Max, but it was shelved and picked up by Netflix instead.

The premise itself was not very complicated. The background of Edwin and Charles were shown little by little as the story progressed and their friendship was nice to see. Other characters also contributed to the enjoyment, like Niko who brought freshness or the cool but actually caring Jenny. Even the Cat King was also rather funny with him kept on teasing the boy. There was also a bit of romance here and there. But since Edwin and Charles were dead in their teenage years, it was mostly teen romance and not the deep mature relationship type. 

The mysteries were not the kind that would make us scratch our heads and the supernatural things were not so scary (I think those CW series like Nancy Drew and Supernatural might be more horrifying). It's actually kind of light to my opinion, nevertheless I was still entertained by it. In general I liked all the episodes, with the final two episodes as my favorites. I thought the ending was not too surprising, though I did not see any potential large story arc for the second season (not too sure if this is going to be renewed). Btw, critics seemed to enjoy the series with praises on the directing and writing. So if you like mystery solving by young detectives who happened to be ghosts and the cases were of supernatural type, then you would enjoy this. But if you prefer complicated kind of mystery that took one whole season to finish, then this will not satisfy you. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars