Early in the new season of Only Murders in the Building, someone says to someone else, “Four is a lot of murders for one building.”  It’s hard to disagree, but I appreciate that the comedic murder mystery, helmed by Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez, is referencing the fact that it’s been doing what it’s doing for what will eventually be 50 episodes by the time this fifth season comes to a close. It’s no worse than people still dying in Guadalupe on Death in Paradise, or the fact that people continue to visit Midsommer despite its crazy murder count. It works as well as it does because of the trio at the centre. The chemistry between long-time friends Steve Martin and Martin Short is baked in, but the addition of Selena Gomez works so well and gives the show a magic which is hard to describe. When the story gets a bit silly or maybe hard to follow, the trio give the show a bounce and a life that would be seriously lacking without them.

Not every season has worked. The second season, the one with Cara Delevingne, was messy and bloated, the fourth had the subplot with cameos from Eva Longoria, Eugene Levy and Zach Galifianakis under the guise of them shadowing the trio for the Only Murders movie. Couple that with another subplot about a group of well-known faces who occupied the building opposite The Arconia building, which seemed to go nowhere, and Paul Rudd back for some reason as a failed stunt double. I will not hear a bad word said about the third season set in the world of musicals which gave us Steve Martin’s incredible performance of ‘Which of the Pickwick sisters did it’, which I watch on YouTube over and over. Obviously, the guest stars are inevitable; everyone wants to work with that incredible cast, but they can often overshadow or take up too much time in the story and often split the three podcasters up, forgetting the show is at its best whenever those three are bouncing off one another.

The guest stars here are Christoph Waltz, Renée Zellweger and Logan Lerman as tech billionaires who might be crucial to this year’s mystery, as well as Beanie Feldstein as Mabel’s former friend turned pop star/influencer Althea, who changes her name to THE so that she comes up before bands like The Beatles or The Rolling Stones on Spotify. At least in the early episodes, it feels less likely that these people will completely take over. The victim this year is the Arconia’s beloved doorman, Lester (Teddy Coluca), who was found in a pool of blood in the Arconia’s fountain on the day of Oliver (Martin Short) and Loretta’s (Meryl Streep) wedding. On that same day, Oliver, Charles (Steve Martin) and Mabel (Selena Gomez) were approached by Sofia Caccimelio (Tea Leoni) in the hopes they could help her find her missing husband Nicky (Bobby Cannavale). They turn her down, saying they only investigate crimes ‘in the building’ It of course transpires in the opening episode of season 5 that Nicky Caccimelio may well be linked to Lester.

The first episode of each season functions pretty much the same way: our podcasters discover the murder and start theorising how it could have occurred. The standout in the early run of episodes is the second episode, which steps away from the investigation and travels back in time when a young Lester began training for the job he would eventually spend his whole life doing and possibly even be murdered for. It’s a smart decision. It gives this year’s victim more of a fleshed out backstory, meaning we care more about why he ended up meeting such a dramatic demise, and also allows the writers to fill in more gaps in the history of Charles, Oliver and a very young Mabel, as well as other familiar faces who we’ve come to know over the course of the series. Charles, still in Brassos fame, is trying out for what will eventually become Russell Crowe‘s role in Gladiator and high on his own self-importance. Oliver has a family, but is neglecting them to work on yet another failed stage production, and a tiny Mabel visits her aunt in the building for the first time and is befriended by Lester. It’s a great episode and one that shows how, even five seasons in, the creative teams are still keen to find inventive ways to tell stories and help the rhythms of things from feeling predictable or stale. It also demonstrates that even though everyone knew Lester, his omnipresence in the building almost made him as invisible as a piece of furniture in the lobby.  He was dependable but taken for granted. His early relationship with Mabel is an interesting one because even she has moved on from him by the time we reach his murder. The show knows its characters so well by this point, and seeing them from a new angle was a real welcome surprise.

The themes of the season don’t feel completely set out yet. Charles is worrying about ageing and getting advice from an unlikely source. Mabel seems shaken by Thea’s sudden arrival, and it’ll be interesting to see where that’s going, and as always, Oliver feels a little overlooked. Only Murders in the Building is still very good at things that make it very good, but it can sometimes feel, as with any show that has been treading the same themes and rhythms for such a long time, that you’ve seen it before, and I do feel slight Only Murders fatigue. It’s not through any faults in the show itself, but more that it feels too familiar and slightly predictable. It goes without saying that the mystery or the mysteries that spring up from the main one will become convoluted, and I’ll get lost in how everything links together, and it’s doubtful that I’ll gel with any of the new guest stars but, I’m going to stick with it because, as always, Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez never fail to make me smile and sometimes, that’s enough.

The first 3 episodes of Only Murders in the Building are available now on Disney+