There’s a distinct and rather cunning whiff of cakeism about the new documentary series Parole. On the one hand, it can convincingly pass itself off as a sombre BBC2 exploration of the British justice system. On the other, it offers us an undeniably enjoyable, reality TV-style opportunity to compare our opinions with those of the experts.

Monday’s opening episode began with some solid statistical captions stating that 16,000 UK prisoners are considered for parole every year, that 4,000 are granted it and that each decision is made by a small panel drawn from the 346 members of the Parole Board. And with that, the programme got down to the juicier business of showing us two of the hearings.

First up was Colin Stacey, who in 1997 beat and kicked a man to death in a club carpark after a football argument. But 25 years later, was he, as he claimed, a changed man who ‘ain’t no threat to the community’? In charge of the verdict were two respectable chaps whose questioning soon revealed how fluent Colin had become in the language of pop psychology. ‘I had no social skills back then,’ he told them – maybe unnecessarily – but ever since he’s worked hard on his ‘anger management issues’.

Like all the best reality TV, too, Parole structured its narrative in order to keep us guessing. Just as Colin was coming across as a model prisoner, we learned that he’d been paroled in 2017 – but within six months was recalled to jail for assaulting a fellow resident at a probation hostel. There were also two elements of the story that may or may not have been red herrings. (You decide.) One was an account of his terrible childhood with a violent and drunken father. The other was an interview with the murdered man’s widow, which naturally carried enormous emotional weight. Yet should victims, however understandable their feelings, have any say in the allocation of punishments?

The second case was more paradoxical. David Coombs has a 40-year history of dating countless women who he conned out of money. But his success, of course, relied on an apparently limitless ability to charm and persuade – which is precisely what he now needed to do to get parole. Faced with two female board members, David didn’t seem to find it easy to abandon his old habits. ‘What would you do if you saw an attractive woman?’ asked the more elderly of the two. ‘I can sit here now and look at you direct,’ replied David with a QED flourish. He then went on to lament the tragic lack of self-esteem that underpinned his regrettable actions.

The programme ended with each man tremblingly opening the envelope containing the news of his fate – duly revealed after a long reality-TV pause. Which proved a suitable climax in more ways than one. While it made for a riveting end to a generally riveting piece of television, the fact that I feel I should avoid spoilers confirms how much of Parole’s appeal goes beyond merely the insights it provides into the workings of British justice. After all, who doesn’t welcome the chance to indulge in some serious – or even titillating – armchair psychology?

At the risk of being drummed out of the TV critics’ club, I must confess that partly – but only partly – for family reasons, I rarely miss an episode of Death in Paradise. I know… its comedy could be most kindly described as ‘gentle’, its love stories tend to the soppy and you can’t help noticing (even if the Saint Marie police don’t) how odd it is that every murder on this Caribbean island is massively ingenious and has just three or four suspects.

Now the show’s popularity has led to a spin-off. In Beyond Paradise, Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall) – the third of the original’s four British detectives to combine social awkwardness with Holmesian sleuthing skills – has moved to rural Devon. And from there, it’s pretty much as you were. In Friday’s opener, as his colleagues moved from smiling indulgently at his funny ways to open-mouthed admiration at his brilliance, Humphrey cracked a case where all the (few) suspects had secrets, only one of which was criminal.

Presumably so as to show a bit of willing, there were a couple of differences. The crime, for example, was attempted murder rather than the real thing. Nonetheless, given that this is essentially Death in Paradise except not in paradise, the question ‘what’s the point?’ is hard to ignore.

Unless, that is, it’s being tried out as a possible replacement. The changing political climate means that the original programme has constantly cranked up the involvement of Saint Marie’s black officers. Even so, its immovable basic premise – clever white bloke shows the natives how it’s done – perhaps can’t be sustained for ever.