TV Talk: It takes too long to get to ‘A Murder at the End of the World’

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

Hulu’s FX-produced seven-episode limited series “A Murder at the End of the World” assembles all the pieces necessary for a modern-day take on Agatha Christie but excises any sense of fun. Instead, this morose mystery alternately bores – way too many character moments teeming with pretentious portent and deep feelings – and then occasionally exhilarates when those Christie-esque twists happen.

Streaming Tuesday on Hulu, viewers with unlimited patience will weather “A Murder at the End of the World” better than the rest of us.

Created, written and directed by Brit Marling, who also has a starring role, and Zal Batmanglij (“The OA”), “A Murder at the End of the World” is about a tech billionaire (Clive Owen) who invites geniuses from assorted disciplines to a retreat in Iceland (given the title, I expected it to be in Tierra del Fuego). Those in attendance include Darby Hart (Emma Corrin, “The Crown”), a pink-haired computer hacker and citizen detective who grew up going to crime scenes with her forensic pathologist father. Naturally, she’s damaged goods.

But that Agatha Christie logline doesn’t reveal itself until near the end of the show’s first episode. Before that there’s an extended flashback that shows Darby, now a published author, investigating a crime with fellow sleuth/artist/love interest Bill (Harris Dickinson). There are many lengthy, ponderous scenes of the couple driving around, feeling deeply. This is evidently the prerequisite for a Gen Z mystery.

These flashbacks that continue throughout the series are there to fill in the backstories of Darby, Bill and their relationship, but it’s done in such a conspicuous way that I kept hearing a mocking voice in my head from “HISHE Dubs ‘Jaws’” whispering, “character development” (blame my 13-year-old, YouTube video-obsessed son for giddily introducing me to that particular reference).

Once the story jumps to Iceland, “A Murder at the End of the World” feels more comfortably like an Agatha Christie mystery, albeit one that plays at half speed, introducing the assembled characters over several episodes with the urgency of that DMV sloth in “Zootopia.”

And yet … while I mock “A Murder at the End of the World” for its indulgences in pregnant pauses and cliched young people tropes (alternate title: “Darby, Bill and the Goblet of Trauma Porn”), the mystery element did hook me at points. And I have to give Marling and Batmanglij credit for trying something different. I’m just not convinced the result is entirely successful.

When the story remains in Iceland, exploring the whodunnit of the murders that occur at the retreat, “Murder” entertains. But inevitably the show segues to the overlong Darby-and-Bill flashbacks that, while they do serve to inform elements of the Iceland story, ramble on and on. (A flashback scene that ends on a cliffhanger in the first episode isn’t resolved until deep into the series.)

In spite of that, “Murder” boasts heartfelt performances, particularly from Dickinson, one of his generation’s best actors (see: “Beach Rats,” “Trust”), and Corrin, an up-and-comer best known for playing Princess Diana in “The Crown.” They imbue even the rambling two-hander scenes with pathos. But that’s not enough for me to recommend “A Murder at the End of the World.” At its conclusion, I just wanted those seven hours back.