For nine weeks, 13 amateur sleuths from across the country will use techniques of crime-scene investigation to uncover evidence in a staged murder. They must solve a new crime each week to advance; if they don’t, they’re out. It all leads to a season finale in which the killer among them is unmasked and someone returns home with $250,000.
“This is the first time for this kind of show, so there’s a lot of the unknown going on here,” Iwasinski said. “You don’t know who you can trust. You don’t know if someone’s lying to you or telling the truth or trying to throw you off. And you don’t know what’s around the next corner. So it’s a little unnerving. You’re always on guard.”
The show was shot at an actual mansion in Los Angeles. Work sometimes started at 3 a.m., she said, with cast members putting in long hours.
Getting the role came Iwasinksi’s way when a college friend, now a casting director, asked her if she knew of anyone interested in a casting call.
“Once I read it, I was like, ‘Me, me, me! I want to do the show!’” Iwasinski said. “I asked him to throw my name in the hat, and the rest is history. I guess they liked the fact I am a television reporter who covers the crime beat.”
Shei is used to being on camera, of course, but conceded Whodunnit? was a different experience altogether.
“There are no scripts. There are cameras on you at every angle,” she said. “And you don’t know the people you are playing the game with at all. You don’t know what the crew has in store, either. You see a much more vulnerable, guarded side of me.”
Back in OKC, Iwasinski said it’s been surreal seeing herself on ABC’s promotional blitz.
“My cast mates and I are all anxious to see the show,” she said. “Even though we didn’t know who we could trust at the beginning, many of us did become friends. I hope everyone tunes in to watch.”
