Midsomer Murders – Set One, Two, Three & Four (Telefilms)

 

Picture: C+/B- (Sets 3 – 5)     Sound: B-     Extras: C+     Telefilms: B-

 

 

When we last looked at Midsomer Murders, we began with the earliest episodes, though they had been issued in Set Five, reviewed elsewhere on this site.  The tale of two detectives (John Nettles and Daniel Casey) figuring out the murders in the title location continued for good reason, being one of the best of the British detective cycle of late, but could so much murder happen in such a nice little town? 

 

The show changes and gets changed in some unexpected ways, but falls into formula by the third season/Set Three, when it goes as far as it can into a commercial position befitting its success, retaining just enough mystery to it to qualify as one.  The telefilms in each set are as follows:

 

Set One:

 

1)     Death’s Shadow

2)     Strangler’s Wood

3)     Blood Will Out

4)     Beyond The Grave

 

Set Two:

 

1)     Dead Man’s Eleven

2)     Death Of A Stranger

3)     Blue Herrings (guest star Nigel Davenport)

4)     Judgement Day (guest star Orlando Bloom)

 

Set Three:

 

1)     Garden Of Death

2)     Destroying Angel

3)     The Electric Vendetta (guest star Alec McGowen)

4)     Who Killed Cock Robin?

5)     Dark Autumn

 

 

Set Four:

 

1)     Tainted Fruit

2)     Ring Out Your Dead

3)     Murder On St. Malley’s Day

4)     Market For Murder (guest star Barbara Leigh-Hunt)

5)     A Worm In The Bud

 

 

 

Nettles and Casey develop more into their roles as investigators Barnaby & Troy, but this is a detective show that starts to succumb to the TV grind.  Maybe if they had more than a murder case every single telefilm, it would be more convincing in the long run, but it works in the short-term any time you watch.  That is good for the casual watcher, but fans would appreciate more of an expansion and maybe them leaving their jurisdiction once in a while.  Even Kolchak: The Night Stalker left Chicago a few times in his one season.

 

Anthony Horowitz, Douglas Watkinson (Set One), and Hugh Whitemore (joining them for Set Two) were the early writers.  Christopher Russell, David Hoskins, Terry Hodgkinson, Jeremy Paul and Peter J. Hammond took over for the all writing by Set Three’s films, with Russell and Hoskins being joined by Andrew Payne and Michael Russell for Set Four.  Even the various producers knew they needed new writers all the time to keep things going, or the grid situation would have been much worse, but the later writers still are not as good at Mystery as the first writers.  Adding epilogues with Barnaby’s wife is the worst later addition of all.

 

The image on Set Two continues the letterboxed 1.66 X 1 ratio from the Set Five box that contained the earliest shows, with cinematographer Graham Frake behind the camera.  The show moved away from a more genre-oriented look from the earliest shows, which is not a decision that worked in the long term.  When the show goes 16 X 9 and is here anamorphically enhanced, there is a noticeable improvement in picture quality, changing the look of the show for the third time.  It also looks like the show switched from film to digital High Definition video, which lightens it up even more by default, despite Frake staying on.   Steve Saunderson did some camera work in Set Three and Four, his first for the series, while Frake stayed.  Too bad Frake could not reinvent the look for the later shows that worked earlier on, and Saunderson did more work in the end.

 

The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo continues its Pro Logic-type surrounds, a staple of the show from telefilm one.  Jim Parker’s theremin-oriented theme does hold up, but is the only trace of the Classical Mystery style left in the show at this point.  Extras include cast filmographies on all the DVDs for the various cast members throughout and a map of Midsomer itself, while production notes and bio of creator Caroline Graham repeat on certain discs.  Set Three finally offers a featurette, behind the scenes of the series, but it is from the Hallmark Channel and shows more of the shows changes for the worse than anything else.  It is framed at an occasionally letterboxed 1.66 X 1 and runs about nine minutes.  Towards the end, the series developed into more of a police procedural than one would have liked, but the series also shows the kinds of changes in TV like nothing since TV went from black & white to color.  The HD just does not cut it for the Mystery genre.  Even if many will not notice for now, they will later.  Midsomer Murders then offers a range of shows for different people, but we recommend Sets 1, 2 & 5 (reviewed elsewhere on this site) in the more convenient Early Cases set the most.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo