As a fan of British crime dramas, I’m wondering why it took me so long to find Midsomer Murders. After all, it has been on British television for 11 years, and is as popular as the now defunct Inspector Morris and Foyle’s War. The boxes issued by Acorn, by the way, do not correspond to the show as aired in England (though it may correspond to the A&E Channel airings). The set consists of the first four episodes of the eight episode season nine, from 2005.

In fact, Midsomer Murders sharews some DNA with Foyle’s War. Writer Anthony Horowitz was one of Midsomer’s three initial creators when the series first aired back in July of 1998. Later he broke off to do five or six (depending on which country you are in) seasons of similarly structured Foyle’s. Both shows are set in a rural area, whose primary detective is a laconic and cryptic cop. The lush greenery and the quaint cottages are contrasted with the seething rages and class hatreds that so often erupt. If Midsomer’s Tom Barnaby (John Nettles) is more homey and amusing, his show also lacks the burden of recreating a whole era 50 years on.

Midsomer is a county that contains such villages as Causton, where Barnaby lives and which is his base of operations, Badger’s Drift down southernly, Midsomer Barton, and other quaintly named municipalities, all accessible via winding sidewalk-free roads. It’s not clear exactly where Midsomer might be found in reality, unlike, say, Hardy’s Wessex, a transparent map of which could be laid down upon Dorset with ghostly alignment, but it seems to be in the countryside to the northeast of London, where the series is actually shot. Each of this small townships is rife with competition, the clash between the old ways and modernization, and the upper classes not bashful about showing their contempt for the lower orders, who are practically in their pockets.

Barnaby has apparently had a succession of partners, and Midsomer Murders Set Eleven (Acorn Media, four discs, $49.95, street date, Tuesday, October 10, 2008) begins with him acquiring a new one, DS Ben Jones (Jason Hughes). Barnaby also has a wife and adult daughter but you don’t see too much of them in this quartet of movie length episodes. Barnaby encounters Jones as a mere cop at the start of “The House in the Woods,” one of several “scary,” and autumnal Midsomer episodes. That the mystery, when solved, and like Foyle’s War the mysteries tend to be clever and surprising in their resolution (though there are a few disappointing climaxes that leave you wanted more), proves to be multigenerational is characteristic of the show’s template, perhaps inspired by the later novels of Ross MacDonald. Generally, the current mysteries are the modern residue of actions taken one, two, many generations ago. “Dead Letters” concerns the current murders erupting in a village during its annual celebration all inspired by the death of a beauty queen many years earlier. Like most episodes, the show features at least one familiar face or prominent actor, in this case Simon Callow, actor and author of a massive biography of Orson Welles. “Vixen’s Run” concerns the implications of a will left behind by a rambunctious patriarch (Joss Ackland). “Down Among the Dead Men” shows how deep into the past the cruelty of a local blackmailer can reach. This episode also stars Paul Freeman, late of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Hot Fuzz. Each episode is clever and charming, and instantly addictive.

Most of the supplementary material on the four discs is text oriented press release type material, with the exception of a section that links up with the pilot, by showing scenes from “The Killings at Badger’s Drift,” which uses two of the same actors in similar roles.

Put Midsomer Murders Set Eleven in your Netflix cue now.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 6:49 pm and is filed under Reel Politique - Film columnist DK Holm, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.