It must have felt like a sort-of homecoming for Selena Gomez. The Disney teen star was now back at the channel in her late 20s, cursing her way through a show about brutal murder alongside two guys whose career highlights were, arguably, in the rear mirror when she was making her name in Wizards Of Waverly Place. But with Only Murders In The Building (a clumsy title that doesn't get any less awkward when you finally realise where you should put the emphasis), those two amigos Steve Martin and Martin Short comprise quite the dream team in cahoots with Gomez.

Short plays Oliver Putnam, a once-prominent Broadway impresario who can't go a minute without namedropping someone he's directed ('as I said to Paula Abdul when we did Hedda Gabler') while Martin is Charles-Haden Savage, a once-prominent TV detective who can't go a minute without throwing out one of his lame catchphrases from way back then ('this sends the investigation into a whole new direction'). Gomez' Mabel Mora, meanwhile, pretty much tolerates these bozos despite herself. This ill-fitting trio do have one thing in common: they're true-crime podcast fans whose mutual love for Everything Is Not OK In Oklahoma (a Serial-style game-changer hosted by Tina Fey's slightly arch Cinda Canning) brings them reluctantly together. But when a body shows up very dead in their extremely exclusive New York apartment block, there's only one thing to do: make a podcast about it and crack the case.

Cue eight episodes that are endless fun broken up by one half-hour which may or may not have been inspired by a classic Inside No 9 (watchers of the Pemberton/Shearsmith show will know it when they see it) and another which focuses a little too much on a British rock star. But it's tough not to love the antics of Short as a pompous ass who generally gets the best lines while Martin plays it straighter than he's ever done. Stuck in the middle is Gomez who brings a large dollop of snarky attitude to her role, with the generation game this triptych plays offering a non-stop conveyor belt of charming fun.

Disney+ Star, Tuesdays, episodes 1–3 available now.