As far as swoon-worthy New York real estate goes, you won't get much better than the apartments of the grand Arconia in Only Murders in the Building.
The building has everything from the minimalist monochrome of Mabel's (Selena Gomez) place to the theatrical cornucopia of antiques that is Oliver's (Martin Short) pad. Then there's Loretta's (Meryl Streep) cosy cottagecore studio, which isn't technically in the Upper West Side co-op, but is worth an honourable mention for its string of individual light fixtures and tapestry of different wallpapers alone.
Despite the remarkably specific and intricate detail jumping out from the bitesize Disney+ episodes, production designer Patrick Howe tells Digital Spy that the sets are often built up from little more than a single line of description in the show scripts.
For Ben Glenroy's (Paul Rudd) swollen-headed penthouse of personal propaganda, the production team were simply told it should be "a Hard Rock Café-worth of memorabilia devoted to himself", from which the team had the freedom to bring the space to life.
Howe credits the Only Murders set decorator Rich Murray with making Easter eggs part of the show's fabric. Murray mined the acting resumes of guest stars Rudd and Streep to inspire countless bespoke pieces of artwork and tchotchkes to slot into the sets of their characters' homes – even if viewers at home never clocked them.
Glenroy's apartment is a museum of serpentine CoBro curios and Rudd-themed knick-knacks, including an action figure sporting a yellow tuxedo which Rudd wore to DJ at bars and bat mitzvahs in the '90s. Meanwhile, Loretta's studio features elements like a suffragette print to reference her work on the 2015 film Suffragette, as well as an identical fridge model to that in the iconic Kramer vs Kramer kitchen.
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Howe said both guest stars were "touched" by the enormous attention to detail – even once they realised Rudd wasn't actually slated to film any of his scenes in Glenroy's bachelor pad, while Loretta's flat would only appear in one of the 10 episodes.
With just the final episode to go, our Only Murders podcasting trio of Charles, Oliver and Mabel have finally reunited to spare Loretta from taking the fall for Glenroy's murder. The heaviest finger is now pointing in the direction of the Broadway producers (as we theorised).
But given that Donna (Linda Emond) has only been implicated in the cookie poisoning, there is every possibility another character could be behind Ben's sudden descent down the lift's inner workings. Howe insists fans should pay close attention to the production design for clues as to whodunnit.
"All of the actual clues are specifically scripted, so those we know to do," he said, adding that they then add extra layers of hints to the set. "Then what winds up happening is there are so many layers that there's a lot of things that people see and interpret as another clue and it turns out they're just part of our decor to help support the actual scripted clues."
While the Arconia has been the province of Only Murders through its first two seasons, its third outing introduced the realm of show business to proceedings, as Oliver made his return to Broadway at the Goosebury Theatre.
The addition was a welcome one for Howe, who trained in stage design, even if he was tasked with crafting a show within a show without a clear picture of what Oliver's production would be about – beyond a vague Nova Scotia setting with a lighthouse centrepiece.
Just as with the apartment sets in the Arconia, the authenticity of the Broadway stage was of the utmost importance for Howe. "It's still getting filmed with television cameras so that has its own set of complications," he explains.
"You generally light differently for TV than you do for live theatre, so all the work of integrating that was a challenge but very exciting to create a convincing look of a Broadway show on stage."
Could we see more fertile production terrain in another season of the show? Howe thinks adding to the cast of characters in the Arconia and decorating a set of new apartments from scratch could be the way to go. "I'd love it," he smiles.
Howe acknowledges there's the built-in production "constraint" of needing the apartment to believably be within the building, but said that still leaves them freed up to play with the look and style of the apartment. The only key exception is keeping the same window shape, given that they're in the establishing building shots or the beloved opening credits.
"I don't know what it would be," he says, before suggesting he certainly has some ideas percolating. "I'd love there to be some more fantasy spaces or something that was really Japanese or full-on Greene and Greene mission style [think honey wood, California bungalows with low-slung roofs] or somebody has a Frank Lloyd Wright-looking estate [à la the sleek Mount Rushmore house in North by Northwest]. It would be arbitrary but get some different looks into the canvas that we've got."
If that smörgåsbord of reference points is anything to go by, even as it prepares to go into a possible fourth season, Only Murders in the Building isn't ready to rest on its familiar laurels.
Only Murders in the Building is available to stream on Disney+.
Previously Deputy TV Editor at Digital Spy and, before that, a TV Reporter at The Mirror, Rebecca can now be found crafting expert analysis of the TV landscape, when she's not talking on the BBC or Times Radio about everything from the latest season of Bridgerton or The White Lotus to whatever chaos is unfolding in the various Love Island villas. When she's not bingeing a boxset, in-the-wild sightings of Rebecca have included stints on the National TV Awards and BAFTAs red carpets, and post-match video explainers of the reality TV we're all watching.
