Darby's mother Victoria (Lea Thompson), a successful mystery writer who she's got a poor relationship with, lets her back into her old room as the two continually snipe at each other. Darby soon finds herself investigating a perjury claim against her friend, which her mother inserts herself into, to Darby's annoyance.
When they solve the case together, Darby and Victoria grow closer to each other, deciding they make a good team. Victoria reveals she's suffering from writer's block, and Darby needs a job. The pair decide to open a detective agency which they dub The Spencer Sisters (as Victoria's mistaken often for Darby's sister instead of her mother) where they solve more cases together as private eyes.
The first season was originally aired from January 29th to April 21st 2023 on CTV in Canada, since then it has been picked up for US distribution by The CW, which began airing it October 4th 2023.
Tropes:
- 10-Minute Retirement: The first-season finale opens with Darby sulking at Des' cabin at the lake, still angry from her fight with her mother in the previous episode.
- Added Alliterative Appeal: The name of each episode is written in such a fashion, such as "The Restaurateur's Ruin" and "The Winemaker's Woe".
- Bedroom Adultery Scene: Darby comes home early in "The Scholar's Snafu", the pilot, and soon discovers her boyfriend was having sex with another woman (who's hiding inside the closet).
- Bittersweet Ending: In the season 1 finale, Darby and Victoria are able to save Billy and help capture the art criminals that were after him, but Billy isn't completely absolved of his other crimes and is still a murder suspect so he is also taken into custody. Also, the Love Dodecahedron between Darby, Lucas, Lindsay, and Des gets messier as Lucas kisses Darby in the finale. But for now, the Spencer Sisters solved the case, Darby and Victoria have grown closer than before, their agency is a success, and Darby is behind Victoria's literary career and is finally ready to face the truth about her father's abusive behavior.
- Broken Pedestal: Darby is very unhappy to learn her deceased dad, whom she adored, was actually abusive toward her mom. She's also mad at her mom for keeping it a secret. Her mom initially hadn't told Darby precisely because she wanted to spare Darby learning this.
- Cannot Spit It Out: The first season finale has Alistar backing out at the last minute on admitting to Victoria that he has feelings for her.
- Chekhov's Gun: The first season finale has a Chekhov's glitter bomb; early in the episode, Lucas bemoans the fact that his fiancee has ordered a ton of glitter bombs for their wedding ceremony, intending to shower the guests in glitter. Darby borrows one of them and uses it to distract the mobsters in the episode's climax.
- Closet Shuffle: Darby finds a woman who'd just had sex with her boyfriend standing inside of their walk-in closet early into "The Scholar's Snafu".
- Cowboy Cop: Darby is a frustrated police officer when the story starts whose (correct) suggestions get ignored and thus she goes off to chase down leads on her own against the orders of her superiors. She's finally going to get officially reprimanded, which will kill her chance to make detective, making Darby quit in frustration. It's downplayed since she doesn't break any laws doing this, and rather than indulged it gets her into trouble.
- Daddy's Girl: Darby idolized her father, even deciding to become a cop because he was a cop.
- Detective Drama: The show focuses on Darby and Victoria Spencer, who are private detectives investigating crimes.
- Disappeared Dad: Darby's father was a police officer killed in the line of duty. This is why Victoria, her mother, wasn't happy with Darby becoming a cop as well.
- Domestic Abuse: It turns out Sam, Victoria's deceased husband (Darby's father) had verbally and psychologically abused her, constantly belittling her and stopping Victoria getting a career of her own.
- Dramedy: It's a family relationship comedy mixed with a Detective Drama, where Darby and Victoria, her mother, investigate crimes while having comic friction.
- Engineered Public Confession:
- "The Scholar's Snafu" case is solved when Darby secretly records the fraudsters admitting to their crime, with the cops overhearing it.
- In "The Virtuoso's Vexation" Darby and Victoria confront a student at her school who framed the caretaker for a crime. She admits it while the principal's listening nearby, who expels her immediately.
- Expy: Stacey Farber plays a Deadpan Snarker who dresses in a tomboy fashion, is generally pessimistic and distrustful of close relationships, has a gay best friend, has issues with her mother but adores her father, and finds herself stuck in a love triangle between the man she's been pining for ages and his ultra-feminine girlfriend of Asian descent. Are we describing Darby Spencer or Farber's earlier role, Ellie Nash?
- Fair-Play Whodunnit: A Genre Savvy viewer can usually piece together the case of the week before the end of the episode.
- Feminine Mother, Tomboyish Daughter: Victoria is highly feminine, with long hair, a demure manner and always dressing in flattering slacks with blouses or similar outfits. Darby, her daughter, has a slightly tomboyish look in contrast. While she also has long hair, Darby eschews more feminine outfits (like her mother wants her to wear), for shirts and jeans. She's also more bold and unladylike in her attitude.
- Following in Relative's Footsteps: Darby followed her deceased dad into the police force. He was killed on the job, so her mother opposed it, fearing that she would lose Darby too.
- Frame-Up:
- In "The Virtuoso's Vexation" the caretaker of a private school is framed for theft by a student, with his criminal history helping to sell the frame up. He gets fired, but then rehired with apologies when the frame up is later revealed.
- The poisoner from "The Diva's Disaster" had implicated a famous woman in the poisoning to throw the police off, while being Beneath Notice at first.
- Friend on the Force: Zane is an officer with the police force in Alder Bluffs, and Darby's old friend. After she's moved back there and starts investigating crimes along with her mother, Zane is helpful as he can arrest suspects they find evidence on along with his colleagues or provide other assistance. Subverted towards the end of the first season when he starts to resent Darby constantly asking him to risk his job to help her and cuts her off.
- Hospital Hottie: Lucas, Darby's ex-boyfriend, is a very handsome medical doctor.
- It's All About Me: Zane accuses Darby of selfishness when refusing to assist her with any more cases, saying she never asks about his life, only talking with him for this. Darby apologizes, but Zane isn't very mollified.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Darby has never read any of the Brynn Martell books, and thus has no idea that the series' recurring antagonist is based on her late dad, who was emotionally abusive towards her mother.
- Love Dodecahedron: Darby and Lucas had previously dated. When they meet again though he's gotten engaged to Lindsay. Darby then starts dating Des. It soon becomes apparent Darby and Lucas are into each other still, as Lindsay senses. She postpones their wedding in the season one finale, and Lucas kisses Darby.
- The Mafiya: It turns out that Billy is not actually a con artist or Gold Digger. In fact he's on the run from the law and a Russian mobster over a rare, very valuable painting. Finally he gets tracked down by the Russians, who kidnap him and extort Victoria to get them the painting back.
- The Missus and the Ex: Darby previously dated Lucas, who's now engaged to Lindsay. When they cross paths again since Darby's working on cases Lucas and Lindsay are connected to, this causes some tension. Lindsay is jealous of Darby and suspicious, as she suspects Lucas might have lingering feelings for her. It's implied that Darby at least does still like Lucas. Lindsay gets over this however, partly as Darby is now connected to Des, another man, but also due to Darby's helping her out greatly.
- Modesty Bedsheet: Darby quickly wraps herself in her bedsheet after waking up the next morning beside Des following them sleeping together, with her afraid of him being caught there by her mom.
- Mum Looks Like a Sister: Sarita, Victoria's literary agent, says Victoria looks more like the older sister of her daughter Darby than her mother. Darby just dismissively notes that Sarita's working for her so she's flattering Victoria, but other people think so too. They end up calling their detective partnership The Spencer Sisters because of this.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: In "The Executive's Elegy" the victim was killed by the husband of a woman he was seeing.
- Never Trust a Title: The title characters are actually a daughter and mother duo.
- Non-Indicative Name: Darby and Victoria are the titular duo. Victoria however is Darby's mother. They simply named themselves this as detective partners since they're often mistaken for really being sisters.
- Parental Sexuality Squick: Darby is comically dismayed when her mom Victoria teasingly indicates that Billy, her new boyfriend, is very well hung, or seeing him in Victoria's robe after they have slept together. Victoria's a bit mischievous with her, and it's implied that she says this simply to annoy Darby.
- Parent-Child Team: Darby and Victoria, her mother, become private detectives partnered together.
- Parent with New Paramour: Darby's dad was killed years ago, with her being less than enthused about her mom's new boyfriend when he's introduced. She gets suspicious of him being a con artist Gold Digger who only wants her mom's money, looking into his past.
- Queer Establishing Moment:
- Darby's friend Zane quickly is shown as married to another man and has an adopted daughter with him when they speak on the phone, as she asks about how they're doing.
- "The Winemaker's Woe" opens with two girls sneaking into the vat room at a winery to make out.
- Straight Gay: Zane and his husband Antonio. Both don't show any stereotypical traits of gay men, having looks and mannerisms indistinguishable from average straight men.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Darby and Victoria, her mother, look pretty similar. Both are redheads, have similar facial structure and even sound much alike.
- Take This Job and Shove It: After being ignored yet again and punished for pursuing a lead she was right about as a police officer (against orders), Darby angrily quits after chewing out her superiors for how they acted to her.
- Title Drop: The Spencer Sisters is the name Darby and Victoria use for their detective agency. Darby is really Victoria's daughter, but they get mistaken for sisters, inspiring their name.
- Token Minority Couple: The gay couple on the show are also both people of color, in a cast that's majority straight and white. Zane is black and Paolo's Latino.
- Twofer Token Minority: The cast is mostly white and straight, with a few exceptions.
- Zane is black and also gay. Paolo, Zane's husband, is a Latino.
- Des, who's also black, starts dating Darby later. In "The Winemaker's Woe", the episode focused on him, more black people also appear (his family and friends), including two queer girls.
- Lindsay Yip, Luke's new fiancee, is at least part Chinese (and played by a mixed race actress of Chinese and white parentage).
- Wham Episode: "The Diva's Disaster" reveals that Victoria had a much different (and much less idyllic) relationship with her late husband than Darby had with her father, and that the reason she's always trying to get Darby to read her books isn't because of ego but because she keeps hoping that if Darby would just read the books, she'd understand what Victoria went through.
- Working with the Ex: In "The Lawyer's Lament", Darby is hired by her ex Luke to look into death threats against his new girlfriend, a corporate lawyer named Lindsay. Adding to the awkwardness, Luke and Lindsay's relationship is very clearly strained by her current case, in which she's defending a mining company.
- Wunza Plot: The series plot is based on this, due to its unusual titular duo. Darby's a former cop investigating crimes along with Victoria, her mother who writes mystery novels.
