Los asesinatos de Midsomer

Despite being set in beautiful English countryside the Midsomer villages are dangerous places to live, it seems that behind every perfectly trimmed hedge a potential murderer is lurking. It is rare that an episode features a single murder, usually there are two or three. Given the high murder rate one would expect that the local constabulary would have a large murder unit but in fact all murders are investigated by DCI Tom Barnaby and his sergeant.

It is a mistake to join any club, society or organisation in the Midsomers as they are nearly all hotbeds of jealousy, rivalry and backstabbing and those that aren't will somehow offend other villagers. These feelings inevitably lead to murder, usually in a fairly imaginative way. Unusually for a TV detective Barnaby is happily married with a grown up daughter. It is surprising that wife Joyce and Daughter Cully have survived as they often found themselves in the groups where the other members were dropping like flies.

While there are plenty of murders it is never overly gory so it is suitable for all but the most squeamish. The cast do a great job, as well as the regulars you can expect to see several well known British actors appearing as suspects and victims. Don't expect it to be too serious though and don't expect it to accurately portray police procedure... Barnaby rarely wastes time with trivial things like search warrants or telling a suspect their rights before questioning them.

The cases of Chief Inspector Barnaby, a respectable middle-aged family man and a good old fashioned copper and his young sergeant Gavin Troy who is rather touchy and immature and is always jumping to conclusions during investigations. All of the duo's cases take place in the picturesque yet fictional county of Midsomer which must have the highest death rate anywhere in the world!

This highly popular detective series was first aired on 23 March 1997 when the pilot episode "The Killings At Badgers Drift" was transmitted. ITV announced it as a one off film but it was very successful with figures in the region of 13.5 million viewers, and the film won the Best Drama Award that year. The film was based on the 1987 novel by Caroline Graham which was regarded by the Crime Writers' Association as being one of the Top 100 crime novels of all time. The initial series which followed was based on Graham's other four Inspector Barnaby novels, these were "Written In Blood", "Death Of A Hollow Man", "Death In Disguise" and "Faithful Unto Death". Having filmed the majority of Graham's novels featuring Barnaby (A Place Of Safety & Ghost In The Machine have not been filmed as yet) the producers turned to other writers to provide new stories for the subsequent five series. These have included contributions from prolific and accomplished writers such as Anthony Horowitz ("Agatha Christie's Poirot"), Douglas Watkinson ("The Professionals", "Boon", "Emmerdale") and Christopher Russell ("The Bill", "Cadfael"). In the past six years since it made its debut on British television there has been nearly thirty episodes and there is no hint of the series finishing yet. The series is notable in that it has brought John Nettles back to prime time TV after the "Bergerac" series finished in 1993. In this series he played Sergeant Bergerac, a Jersey copper fighting alcoholism and has had uncomfortable relationships with several girlfriends, a role far removed from that of Inspector Barnaby.

The first episode of the seventh series entitled "The Green Man" was aired on 2 November 2003. Daniel Casey who plays Sergeant Troy has left the series. The character has been promoted to Inspector and is leaving Midsomer to take up a position in Newcastle. John Nettles will have a new sidekick in John Hopkins as Sergeant Scott who will be introduced when the remainder of the series is broadcast in January 2004.

"Midsomer Murders" is a wonderful series, although like many long running series, it has occasionally fallen below it's own standard in that the ideas for new plots sometimes becomes strained after so many episodes. The characters are rich and well realised by first class actors and it gets full mileage out of it's rural setting. Guest stars have included Alan Howard (the nephew of Leslie Howard) and Samantha Bond (Miss Moneypenny in all the James Bond films since "Goldeneye"). The quality of this series to my mind is that it should make it to the big screen someday. There would be no need to change anything as all the ingredients for a good cinema feature are there already. These days most of the quality stuff is on the small screen and a lot of mediocre stuff is lumbered on our picture houses.

It has been announced that John Nettles will be quitting the show after playing Inspector Barnaby for twelve-years since the show made its debut. However, he will still be seen in it until 2011 and it looks very much like the show will still continue very much in the manner of other TV shows such as Taggart and McCallam, which carried on without their title characters.

This series is TV at it's best. The plots are full of twists and turns, none of the predictable formula plots of the American hour long dramas. The attention to detail is extraordinary, from the costumes, the cottage interiors to the whiskers on a character's face. One of the pleasures of watching a British drama, such as this one, is the quality of the acting. The actors are not chosen for their flawless white smiles or their silicon enhanced bodies but for their acting talents. The scenery and the quaint English villages are idyllic but underneath the seven deadly sins fester. The viewer can enjoy piecing together the clues to uncover the main villain but it is also fun to guess who is going to be the next victim. It is one of the few TV offerings that my husband and I can watch and enjoy together.

At about the third episode, I realized that at least three murders had to be committed before Barnaby and Troy got the killer. The more I watched, it seemed that the entire series is really a subtle spoof of the English detective mystery genre, that is Country English. The series captures the beautiful countryside, these lovely villages, the wellington boots, the country architecture and interior decor, all to perfection. And underneath it all seethes the violence, greed, sexual anomalies and jealousy of a country village. Reality in rural England has got to be much different, I hope. The murder rate is astronomical in this Midsomer part of England! And poor Barnaby and Troy. They plod along until the killer just about leaps into their hands. I thoroughly enjoy it all and have my chuckles throughout the episode. The local library recently purchased 10 episodes. I still have one to watch.

Margaret, an avowed Anglophile

I discovered the "Midsomer Murders" 2 years ago. In Argentina they are shown on Hallmark Channel, and in this case I don't mind their repetitive programming, because I've become so totally addicted to the episodes that I watch them every time they are on, twice , four, five times....(middle age is creeping up on me, so sometimes I tend to forget who dunit) Wonderful entertainment, great actors down to the smallest role (remember Phyllida Law and John Nettles getting high on pot cookies??? Hilarious!!!) - which goes to show that the British are unsurpassed in the art of solid ,tasteful and funny TV crime fare. I hope we get new episodes like the ones last year and that Hallmark keeps showing them, like other British crime series, too. Malke Schmiedeberg