Death takes a holiday

Nine Perfect Strangers is arguably better TV than The White Lotus. The set-up is clearer and the direction is more dynamic – the slo-mo blender shot is a witty metaphor. But Strangers feels more thrown together. Three episodes in and it's already wobbling at the point where Lotus was starting to build.

Both resort dramas are whodunnits framed with menace which brings them in line with other bad trips in crime. A group of holidaying strangers with murder in their midst is a staple of drawing room detective stories like Death On The Nile. But evil at the spa is almost a sub-genre in itself. James Bond was dispatched to a health farm in Thunderball and nothing good came of it. Number Six in The Prisoner was sent on permanent holiday to a resort that was a brainwashing panopticon. The Stepford Wives (1975) peddled an easeful suburban existence; Seconds (1966) promised better life through surgery. In Nine Perfect Strangers and The White Lotus 21st century privilege adds an even darker twist: access to wellness health care comes at the cost of money and little else.