The Building - Season 1 — Only Murders In

Production designer Curt Beech deserves special mention for turning the Arconia into a living organism. With its hidden passageways, freight elevators, and Byzantine floor plans, the building mirrors the psyches of its residents. Each apartment—from the dim, tie-dyed cave of the super-fan “Sting Fan” to the pristine, silent prison of Charles’s kitchen—reveals a different shade of urban isolation. The show captures a specific, romanticized New York: one where rent is implausibly affordable, but the emotional rent is sky-high.

Unlike many shows that use modern technology as a gimmick, Only Murders integrates the true-crime podcast format into its very DNA. As the trio records their podcast about the murder they are investigating, the show plays with narrative reliability. Are they documentarians or vigilantes? Are they helping the deceased or exploiting him for Spotify streams? Only Murders in the Building - Season 1

Season 1 brilliantly satirizes the ethics of the true-crime industrial complex (complete with a hilariously smug rival podcaster played by Tina Fey) while still delivering the visceral satisfaction of clue-hunting. The show gives you everything: hidden emerald rings, tattooed fingers, cat food poisoning, and a 6th Avenue subway grate that holds a secret. It respects the audience enough to play fair with the clues, but it never forgets that the emotional stakes are higher than "whodunnit." Production designer Curt Beech deserves special mention for

The show’s greatest trick is its casting. On paper, the generational and tonal gap between Martin, Short, and Gomez should have resulted in awkward friction. Instead, it produces harmonic gold. Martin plays Charles with a stiff, anxious precision that hides deep wells of loneliness; Short unleashes Oliver as a hurricane of velvet scarves and desperate enthusiasm; and Gomez anchors them both with Mabel’s weary, millennial realism. The show captures a specific, romanticized New York: