Return to Paradise

Return to Paradise is an Australian-British crime drama and the second spin-off of the phenomenally successful Death in Paradise franchise, following 2023’s Beyond Paradise. Produced by BBC Studios Productions Australia alongside Red Planet Pictures (the company behind the original series) for Australia’s ABC, in association with the BBC, the six-part series premiered in Australia on 8 September 2024 before airing in the UK on BBC One and iPlayer from 22 November 2024. Marking a significant evolution for the “Paraverse,” Return to Paradise introduced the franchise’s first-ever female lead detective, a deliberate creative choice that BBC head of programme acquisition Sue Deeks championed as bringing “everything we all love about Death in Paradise—the humour, the beautiful scenery, the likeable characters, the ingenious plots—now in a fabulous Australian setting.”

The series stars Anna Samson (Home and Away, The Leftovers, Dead Lucky) as Detective Sergeant Mackenzie “Mack” Clarke (holding the rank of Detective Inspector during her time with London’s Metropolitan Police, reflecting differing rank structures between the two countries’ police forces). Mack is forced to abandon her high-flying London career and return to her childhood home of Dolphin Cove after being accused of tampering with evidence—a professional disgrace made all the more painful by the fact that Dolphin Cove is also where, six years earlier, she left her fiancé at the altar. Mack’s homecoming is thus doubly fraught: she must clear her professional name whilst confronting a community, and specific relationships, she fled rather than faced. This blend of case-of-the-week murder mystery with a slow-burn personal redemption arc gives Return to Paradise a somewhat more emotionally serialised structure than its Caribbean-set predecessor, whilst retaining the essential DNA of ingenious, satisfying whodunits solved against gorgeous coastal scenery.

Mack’s new colleagues in Dolphin Cove include her boss, Senior Sergeant Philomena Strong (Catherine McClements, Total Control, Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries), a steady authority figure overseeing the small coastal police station; Detective Senior Constable Colin Cartwright (Lloyd Griffith, Ted Lasso, Nolly), who partners with Mack on investigations; volunteer police officer Reggie Rocco (Celia Ireland, Wentworth, Home and Away), whose decades of Australian television experience bring warmth and local colour to the ensemble; and Constable Felix Wilkinson (Aaron L McGrath, The Code, Preppers), an Aboriginal Australian officer whose grounded presence has been particularly well received by viewers. Tai Hara (Home and Away, Colin From Accounts) also joins the principal cast, whilst Andrea Demetriades plays Daisy Dixon, a bartender at the Dolphin Cove beach club who finds herself unexpectedly caught in a love triangle, providing some of the show’s lighter romantic subplot alongside Mack’s more serious personal reckoning.

Filming took place in Sydney and the Illawarra coastal region of New South Wales, with the production leaning heavily into the area’s dramatic coastal cliffs, pristine beaches, and small-town charm to create Dolphin Cove’s distinctive visual identity—consciously differentiating the series from both Saint Marie’s Caribbean warmth and Shipton Abbott’s gentler English coastline, whilst still delivering the sun-drenched, holiday-adjacent atmosphere that has become a “Paraverse” signature. Co-creator and executive producer Peter Mattessi expressed excitement at bringing “the world of Return to Paradise to life” alongside producer Di Haddon and directors Mat King and Tenika Smith, emphasising the show’s commitment to a “distinct Australian flair” whilst still paying clear homage to the original series’ beloved formula.

Following a well-received first series, Return to Paradise was renewed for a second series, which introduced further texture to Mack’s personal life—notably her continued ambivalence about settling permanently in Dolphin Cove despite the community’s growing warmth toward her. As Anna Samson explained to TV Choice, “She still wants to go back to London and I don’t think she loves being in Dolphin Cove with the beach and the sun, they’re not her thing,” a characterisation that adds unusual emotional complexity for the genre—a lead detective who, unlike many “fish out of water” predecessors across the Paraverse, doesn’t necessarily fall in love with her new paradise setting, at least not straightforwardly. Series 3, confirmed as filming, expands the cast further with Kerry Armstrong joining as Mack’s mother Jillian, alongside guest appearances from Tina Bursill, deepening the family and community dynamics that distinguish Mack’s ongoing journey from the more purely episodic structures of earlier Paraverse entries.

Return to Paradise represents the continued expansion of the Death in Paradise franchise into a genuine multi-strand universe, joining the original Saint Marie series, Beyond Paradise’s Devon-set adventures, and the Canadian-set Saint-Pierre in demonstrating the format’s remarkable international adaptability. Whilst each spin-off maintains the franchise’s essential formula—an outsider detective, a tight-knit local police team, gorgeous coastal scenery, and ingeniously plotted murders—Return to Paradise’s focus on Mack’s complicated homecoming and her ambivalent relationship with paradise itself gives the series its own distinct emotional register within the broader Paraverse, proving that the franchise’s appeal can flex to accommodate darker personal backstory and more serialised character development without losing the fundamentally comforting, satisfying mystery-solving at its core.

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