Married Australian homicide detectives Vanessa “Vinny” and Peter “Cole” Coleman retire early and invest in their dream, a sunny 13-room motel in a seaside New Zealand town. Their fresh start lasts about a week, until a body turns up in Unit 3. Helped (and sometimes hindered) by the town’s very new, handbook-checking Constable Jamie Haira and a quirky motel and local community, the pair find their sleuthing instincts impossible to switch off.
Blue Murder Motel is a New Zealand cosy murder-mystery comedy-drama created by Kate McDermott and Steven Zanoški, produced by Great Southern Television for TVNZ with NZ On Air funding of up to $2.8 million. It premiered on TVNZ 1 and TVNZ+ on 18 January 2026 and has been picked up by Acorn TV for the US and Canada and by ITV for the UK. The first series has eight episodes of around 45 minutes, and a second series is in production. It stars Michala Banas and Brett Tucker, who previously worked together on the Australian drama McLeod’s Daughters.
Vinny and Cole are weary career detectives who’ve traded the Australian police force for the quiet life of motel ownership. A guest dies in Unit 3 within a week of the motel opening, and by the end of episode one the neon sign has been tagged, turning the Blue Motel into the Blue Murder Motel. Each episode brings a new case among holidaymakers and locals, from a fiery death at a holiday park to a radio DJ who dies mid-broadcast while a summer storm traps guests in the conference room. Their partner and foil is Constable Jamie Haira (Jayden Daniels), a recent academy graduate and the town’s only police officer, who consults the procedures handbook mid-crime-scene and slips off to surf at lunchtime, but grows into the job as the series goes on. Stephanie Tauevihi plays Maxine, and Jaime McDermott plays Saffron, a motel employee.
The tone is warm, glossy and funny. Its distributors have pitched it as light crime for an international appetite for “glossy, warm and funny” series, and it sits alongside shows like Death in Paradise, The Mallorca Files and Return to Paradise, with retired-cop sleuths in a holiday setting. Lucy Lawless is among the directors, and writers include Kate McDermott, Paul Jenner, James Griffin and Marina McCartney.
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Locations
Setting
Mōwai Bay (Fictional), New Zealand— Fictional seaside town "somewhere near Auckland"
New Zealand
New Zealand
