HBO is premiering a new series Sunday night that is in many ways the antithesis of what we've come to expect from HBO prime time television. It's not dark, edgy, sexy or crammed with celebrities. You can watch it with the whole family and not have to wonder if you'll have to cover little Jimmy's eyes. The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series begins Sunday night, 3.29.2009, on HBO at 8pm, and it just might be the kind of sweet slow entertainment we need to calm our souls while the whole world seems to be going to hell in a hand basket. The Flaming Nose founders have a special fondness for the old TV series, "Little House on the Prairie". Change the location to Botswana Africa and stir in a little "who dunnit" mystery, and you might see where this series is going. The first episode is bound to attract fans of best selling author 
Alexander McCall Smith, who has written multiple books about the gentle, brilliant, and amply endowed Precious Ramotswe. Anyone who has ever been a member of a book club in the USA, has probably already succumbed to her many charms. How can you not love an African lady who spends the inheritance from a beloved father (multiple cattle) on the wispy dream of opening up her own Detective Agency. She is assisted in this Don Quixote quest by a by a fetching and discombobulated secretary by the name of Grace Makutsi. Not since Tina Fey, has anyone looked 
more lovely in glasses. They are the most unlikely Starsky and Hutch you will ever see. But in their meandering, logical, and ultimately very powerful way, they always... get the bad guy in the end.I'm willing to give this one a try. I would have expected a series like this as a Hallmark special on CBS, but like the promo says, "It's not television...it's HBO", so anything can happen. I loved The Sopranos like there was no tomorrow, but it was hard to go to bed without nightmares on a Sunday night after that saga. Something tells me the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency will be a delight. And after... I'll sleep like a baby.
I'm commenting on my own post to remark that the pilot for No. 1 Ladies exceeded my expectations. Of course this two hour movie pilot had an excellent pedigree, as it was the last movie directed by Anthony Minghella (The English Patient). The casting was superb, Jill Scott as MME Ramotswe is beyond loveable and I predict that Grace Makutsi (Anika Rose), comic relief and secretary extraordinaire, will be the breakout character. Looking forward to much more of this refreshing series. Oh...and it doesn't hurt that the on location cinematograhy in Botswanna is so gorgeous it will probably increase their tourism rate exponentially!
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