I’m still digging The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency on HBO. On first glance, you might tag the show as a blend of Murder She Wrote, Columbo, and Veronica Mars, but there’s really nothing like it on TV right now.

For one thing, the people on Detective Agency actually look like real people, not some Hollywood facsimile of what we imagine people might look like in a perfect world. Jill Scott’s Mma Romatswe is “traditionally built,” which in simple terms, means she looks like a lot of people who are watching her on TV. OK, maybe you could say that about Jessica Fletcher or Columbo, but certainly not Veronica Mars.

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Last year, I had the opportunity to interview Amin Maltaqa, director of a beautiful film called Captain Abu Raed, which was shot in Jordan. I asked Amin about the lighting, because the entire film seemed to be bathed in this golden glow. He said much of it was filmed specifically in an area blessed with that natural glow.

That’s the first thing I thought of while watching The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, HBO’s new series which premiered Sunday night. Filmed in Botswana, the entire show had a similar golden glow, like someone had washed the film in lovely sepia tones. And that’s just part of its allure. The episode was filled with African animals, bright colors, stunning landscapes, and little of the squalor we might expect in a show filmed in South Africa. Read the rest of this entry »