Midsomer Murders: Set Eleven (Acorn Media DVD)

 

Picture: D     Sound: C-     Extras: D     Episodes: C

 

 

There are tons of detective series from the BBC and they are all very much the same.  They involve an older police detective, or if adapted from an Agatha Christie novel a private detective, who works solving oddly abundant murders in small towns across England.  More often than not they have a younger sidekick as well, but younger just means that they are in their late thirties and a bit dopey.  The Midsomer Murders series is really just more of the same, but at the very least is not as hung up on its own British-ness as most of the rest.

 

The picture quality has that very distinct BBC look to it where all of the colors are very muted.  The picture is in 16:9 widescreen and when watched closely has a softness to it.  The sound is also pretty standard BBC quality but less noticeably soft than the picture.

 

The season is on four discs each with one 100 minute long episode and its own set of special features.  The special features are all rather boring and all text-based ranging from cast filmographies to biographies to “fun facts”.

 

But then, there is a puzzlement to writing a review of the eleventh season of a show because if you’re reading a review to find out if you will like a show, you ought to start with Season 1.  But if you’ve already seen Seasons 1 through 10, then you know whether or not you’re going to like Season 11 and you really have no business reading a review.  So if you’re looking to break into the series, you’re better off reading the reviews we have posted of the first few seasons.

 

 

-   Matthew Carrick