They wanted to upend the TV detective formula. Enter the unassuming but formidable Darby Hart
The mystery begins thus: "A young woman in basketball shorts and a hoodie — she's the same age as Google — walks down the street towards a bookstore." That's how creators Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling describe stage directions that introduce Darby Hart (Emma Corrin), protagonist of the FX limited series "A Murder at the End of the World." Darby quietly waits in the back of a small crowd until she's summoned to the lectern to read from her own true-crime memoir.
Enter the next great TV detective.
"Darby knocked us out. We were developing other ideas, but then she just came and wouldn't let go," says Batmanglij. Though he takes issue with the TV label, Batmanglij stresses how the streaming age has freed storytelling from the bonds and structures that would have made this story less interesting to tell: "It's not film, it's not TV, it's some hybrid."
Indeed, the seven-episode "Murder" wears its intellect and social concerns on its sleeve in ways that would have made the gatekeepers of old slam their portals shut. The climate crisis, for instance, is woven into the fabric of
