The show is about John, the extremely smart but hermit-like identical twin brother of a police investigator. John makes a living inventing puzzles under the pen-name Ludwig. John must assume the identity of his brother James in order to figure out why James has disappeared. (Don’t expect Season 1 to answer that question, though!)
The episodes, as you would expect, are a mixture of fish-out-of-water comedy, displays of intellectual brilliance that address some specific police investigation that “James” becomes involved in, and delicate attempts to pursue the dark secret of the disappearance of the real James. And is there a love triangle? Maybe so…
See below for a few more thoughts (no spoilers).
I enjoyed seeing actor/writer/comedian David Mitchell in the British comedy game show Would I Lie to You?, where he is charmingly pedantic, so I was keen to watch this British comedy mystery series. I don’t remember how I heard about it. Apparently David has been in a lot of things that I’ve never seen or heard of.
Anyway, Ludwig did not disappoint, except in its length: Season 1 consists of only six one-hour episodes. I watched them all online more or less consecutively when I was home sick from work one day.
Even if you’re not sick, I highly recommend watching the show—as long as you don’t mind suspending your disbelief about the awkward twin not being recognized by literally everyone around him right away. But it’s plausible, especially if James’s co-workers don’t know he has a brother.
People are change-blind; we see what we expect to see, because we can’t be bothered to pay attention to everything all the time, and because it’s illogical to assume some sort of weird conspiracy whenever we notice something a little off. There are videos out there that resemble practical jokes or magic tricks (but were made by scientists) that demonstrate that we don’t always notice one person being swapped out for someone completely different.
Speaking of magic tricks, I still don’t know quite what to make of The Prestige (2006), despite having watched it three times in a row in 2019.
