Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Who Killed Santa? A Murderville Murder Mystery’ On Netflix, Where Jason Bateman And Maya Rudolph Help Terry Seattle Solve A Murder — With No Script

We really enjoyed Murderville when it came out in February, because we thought the guests who walked onto the set without a script or an idea of what the hell was going on were game to follow star Will Arnett’s crazy lead. Just in time for the holidays, a new Murderville special doubles down on the clueless guest stars, making Jason Bateman and Maya Rudolph the new trainees of Terry Seattle.

WHO KILLED SANTA? A MURDERVILLE MURDER MYSTERY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Detective Terry Seattle (Will Arnett) hates Christmas, so he’s in his robe, with a pizza, about to watch a VHS of just the cool scenes in Die Hard, when he gets a call from his vacationing chief/ex-wife Rhonda Jenkins-Seattle (Haneefah Wood). Mayor Palmer (Tawny Newsome) is doing an event at city hall where Santa will give gifts to orphans, and he needs to run security. And since he can’t do it by himself, she’s sending over a new trainee to help: Jason Bateman.

Yes, we’re back in Murderville, where the overwrought Seattle is helped by a celebrity who walks on the set having no script and no idea what the case is, but will be asked to solve it by the end of the episode. Seattle tells Bateman that he needs to do a threat assessment, and he’s helped in that regard by his former trainee Marshawn Lynch, who comes out of nowhere with a hockey mask on, carrying a chain saw. Then they go to city hall.

The lights go out and Santa, actually Hall of Fame quarterback John “Johnny” Blaze (played by someone we won’t spoil here) is stabbed in the chest by a candy cane that has been licked down to a fine point. Seattle and Bateman need to solve the case by dawn or the orphans won’t get their presents and Mayor Palmer can kiss reelection goodbye.

After talking to the first suspect, sportscaster Jim Trentley (Kurt Braunohler), who was $9 million in debt to Blaze and seems OK with getting naked like he’s in a locker room, the mayor decides to bring in a new trainee to help: Maya Rudolph, who again has no idea what’s going on. The other two suspects are Mia Briggs (Courtney Parchman), the assistant who Blaze had a lot of control over, and Dona Foccacia (Eliza Coupe), whose restaurant deal wit Blaze fell through at the last second so he could open a competing restaurant.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Is there anything that can be compared to Murderville, besides the British show it’s based on (Murder In Successville)? Not really.

Performance Worth Watching: As with the series, some of the in-the-dark celebrities choose to play things straight and others choose to just react, even if it means they break the reality of the scene. Both Rudolph and Bateman laughed a lot, mainly reacting to Arnett’s silly overreactions to things.

Memorable Dialogue: We especially loved when Bateman, dressed as an elf, is instructed by the mayor to do an elf dance, and he basically does the bad chicken dance Arnett used to do on Arrested Development.

Sex and Skin: Nothing here.

Our Take: In the tradition of the holiday specials in the UK, the Murderville holiday special ups the ante from the original series. There isn’t just one clueless actor thrown on the set without a script, there are three (yes, we said three — the third actor is another spoiler we won’t reveal). As with the series, the plots of each episode don’t really matter — Orphans? In 2022? — because what we’re there to see is the celebrity guests try to figure out just what the hell is going on and just where Arnett is going to go as Terry Seattle.

Bateman should be especially used to Arnett’s goofiness by now, given their years together on Arrested, but he still gets surprised by his old friend and Smartless co-host quite a bit. Rudolph, for her part, is game to try anything, including a fake Bulgarian accent and a variation on “good cop, bad cop” where she plays a working class British cop.

The funniness is really in seeing how the two guests handle all the surprises, but there are other moments that made us laugh, like when the actor playing Johnny Blaze kept laughing at what was going on despite his character being dead, Braunohler being surprisingly flexible as a naked Jim, or Coupe cursing up a storm as Focaccia.

The 50-minute format seems to be a good one for Murderville, as things don’t get repetitive. And every time a new clueless celeb stepped through a door looking around with at least a little fright in their eyes, we laughed heartily, as we did when the celebs revealed who they thought killed Santa.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Because Arnett is so over the top as Terry Seattle, and Bateman and Rudolph are game to follow his lead, Who Killed Santa? A Murderville Murder Mystery works. Just don’t expect any more than some dumb laughs for 50 minutes.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.