Mon 23 May 2011
A TV Review by Stan Burns: Two Episodes of MIDSOMER MURDERS (2008).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[10] Comments
MIDSOMER MURDERS. BBC-TV; two from Season 11. John Nettles (DCI Tom Barnaby, Jason Hughes (DS Ben Jones), Jane Wymark (Joyce Barnaby), Barry Jackson (Dr Bullard). Based on the characters created by Caroline Graham.
In “Left for Dead” (24 May 2008), Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby investigates the death of a couple in an isolated house.
They had totally cut themselves off from the surrounding community — no one had been invited into the house in years, and there was no electricity or running water. The woman appears to have died of natural causes, but the man seems to have been pushed down the stairs.
Barnaby’s investigation becomes intertwined with a protest movement against highway construction, and the disappearance of a child 19 years before. This is the best one of these I have seen in awhile — harking back to the earlier movies in this series (these are too complex and well produced to be called episodes). It also reminded me a little of Jack Vance’s Bad Ronald.
In the earlier “Shot at Dawn” (1 January 2008), a feud between two families going back to WWI results in the murder of the elder statesman of one of the families. But when Barnaby investigates he finds that the feud may not have been the cause of the murder — instead it may be the result of a disputed piece of land that can be developed into homes for a fortune.
One of the better of the more recent ones, but the murderer is obvious. Still there are a lot of twists and turns getting to the end. If you don’t mind that the characters are more than a bit eccentric, I suspect you will like both of these.
Rating: B minus (both).
May 23rd, 2011 at 11:20 pm
This show is a favorite of mine and very well produced with a big budget for each episode. I have 70 episodes so far, all of which clock in at around 90 minutes.
Barnaby solves the murder cases with a straight face despite the bizarre and crazy plot twists and insane reasons for murdering people. He actually is quite sane, reasonable, and has no major hangups like some of the UK detectives like Inspector Frost or Inspector Morse. No drinking problem, does not live alone and appears quite happy. His wife and daughter also appear very normal.
However, everyone else in the villages often act as if they are escapees from the local asylums. I find the cases to be often very strange and full of black comedy elements.
May 24th, 2011 at 1:40 am
Seventy episodes at 90m each? That’s one long chunk of viewing time. At the speed I’m currently watching DVDs, it would take me well over three months to see them all, assuming that I were to watch nothing else — about an hour or so every evening.
But I’m intrigued, to say the least. What I’ve discovered, though, and I was wondering about it, is that the order they came out in the US is not the order they were seen in the UK.
I found this as part of a review posted on an Amazon page for one of the DVD sets. Looks like I ought to start with Set 5, the US version, that is:
The Killings at Badger’s Drift S 1 x E 1 1998 US Box Set 5
Written in Blood S 1 x E 2 1998 US Box Set 5
Death of a Hollow Man S 1 x E 3 1998 US Box Set 5
Faithful Unto Death S 1 x E 4 1998 US Box Set 5
Death in Disguise S 1 x E 5 1998 US Box Set 5
Death’s Shadow S 2 x E 1 1999 US Box Set 1
Strangler’s Wood S 2 x E 2 1999 US Box Set 1
Dead Man’s Eleven S 2 x E 3 1999 US Box Set 2
Blood Will Out S 2 x E 4 1999 US Box Set 1
Death of a Stranger S 3 x E 1 2000 US Box Set 2
Blue Herrings S 3 x E 2 2000 US Box Set 2
Judgement Day S 3 x E 3 2000 US Box Set 2
Beyond the Grave S 3 x E 4 2000 US Box Set 1
Garden of Death S 4 x E 1 2001 US Box Set 3
Destroying Angel S 4 x E 2 2001 US Box Set 3
The Electric Vendetta S 4 x E 3 2001 US Box Set 3
Who Killed Cock Robin? S 4 x E 4 2001 US Box Set 3
Dark Autumn S 4 x E 5 2001 US Box Set 3
Tainted Fruit S 4 x E 6 2001 US Box Set 4
Market for Murder S 5 x E 1 2002 US Box Set 4
A Worm in the Bud S 5 x E 2 2002 US Box Set 4
Ring Out Your Dead S 5 x E 3 2002 US Box Set 4
Murder on St. Malley’s Day S 5 x E 4 2002 US Box Set 4
A Talent For Life S 6 x E 1 2003 US Box Set 6
Death and Dreams S 6 x E 2 2003 US Box Set 6
Painted in Blood S 6 x E 3 2003 US Box Set 6
A Tale of Two Hamlets S 6 x E 4 2003 US Box Set 6
Birds of Prey S 6 x E 5 2003 US Box Set 6
The Green Man S 7 x E 1 2003 US Box Set 7
Bad Tidings S 7 x E 2 2004 US Box Set 7
The Fisher King S 7 x E 3 2004 US Box Set 7
Sins of Commission S 7 x E 4 2004 US Box Set 7
May 24th, 2011 at 3:00 am
YES, Barnaby is a standing feature on a lot of TV-stations hereabout.
It is mostly not extremely action-oriented, to say the least, but it plays with the evil, also brutally crazy, that lurks under the surface of nice rural Olde England.
In the films ,at least.
May 24th, 2011 at 6:07 am
Steve, I would recommend buying the British boxsets from amazon UK. I have the first 7 sets, each of which have 10 dvds. They are alot cheaper than the USA sets, and they are in order.
Concerning watching movies, I have the habit of watching one at dinner or just after, and one at midnight. So I get two movies a day plus 2 or 3 hours of reading, at least. Lately I’ve been watching westerns at dinner in addition to a film noir at midnight. Then I have to fit in a baseball game also.
May 24th, 2011 at 6:18 am
When we were in London recently we discovered that John Nettles had retired and Neil Dudgeon was the new Insp. Barnaby, the “cousin” of the previous one.
May 24th, 2011 at 7:23 pm
There are three large sets out over here: The Early Cases, Barnaby’s Casebook, and Village Case Files, all of which contain over twenty episodes, and the episodes are in the right order. These collections are about $150 each! But Deepdiscount usually has a sale on them once a year at about 50% off. I must say that Acorn, the US distributor of these and other British TV sets, are greedy sons of b***hs.
Since about the 50th ‘episode’ the quality has slipped. More C+s than As.
May 25th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
Stan: Do you really think that the quality has slipped? Whilst there are always some dodgy episodes, I think that some of the more recent stories have been absolute corkers. As the whole thing has gone on they’ve had to get wackier and wackier in order not to repeat themselves, and this is just to my taste! Whilst I enjoy a classical whodunnit, it’s the offbeat elements that really draw me to the show. I haven’t seen the Neil Dudgeon episodes yet, but I suppose that I’ll have to steel myself and give one of them a go very soon.
May 25th, 2011 at 8:19 pm
Stan
I hadn’t noticed those large sets until you mentioned them in Comment #6. As Walker suggested, I’d been thinking about buying the series from Amazon-UK (I have a multi-region player), but I see that The Early Cases Collection (19 DVDs) goes for a tad under $100 from 3rd party sellers in the US, or just over $5 per disk.
I might go for that. I’m still thinking about it!
Bradstreet
I don’t know anyone who’s watched any of the Dudgeon episodes yet. I hope you’ll report back when you do. (Or anyone else!)
— Steve
May 26th, 2011 at 10:59 am
The last twenty or so episodes have been more hit or miss than the first 50. When I look at my ratings on the first 50 on Netflix, I gave most 4 and some 5 stars. Most of the last 20 are three stars with a couple of four stars. And nothing is as whacky as the first five episodes . . .
I have the first The early Cases collection.
May 26th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
Whichever way I go in getting the DVDs, I’ll make sure I start with the first ones first. I’ve never done Netflix, but I never did Blockbuster either. I like having the DVDs in hand, in the same way I have a library card but I’ve used it only once.