I am pretty shocked by how well-liked this show is! I wanted to love it. It had all the makings of greatness - an old-fashioned murder mystery, on a cruise ship, well-acted, marvelous set and attention to detail.... But almost from the start I was straight-up astonished by the poorly-written, artificially dramatized, inconsistent, and hole-pocked plot line. Multiple times in every episode I was left exasperated, asking myself why on earth no one was asking a given (obvious) question, or why characters made the decision/s they did... notably, the recurrent, incredibly overstated theme of deceit amongst pretty much everyone, characters withholding information and even flat-out lying to one another, routinely, without consideration of how it turned out badly last time, and often without compelling reason, from the audience's perspective... This drove me wild. It seemed like a bald-faced attempt to manufacture drama. It was frustrating the first few times. Several episodes in, it had officially spoiled the show for me. :/
Could have been epic. Was a terribly botched up attempt at a great story.