PhilPaine.com

I love all of the “Mid­Somer Mur­ders”. John Net­tles (as the Chief inspec­tor) and Daniel Casey (as his bone-head­ed side-kick). The pro­duc­tion val­ues are first-rate, the act­ing top-notch, the scripts are well-writ­ten. Every one of the tiny, pic­turesque vil­lages in the fic­tion­al Eng­lish coun­ty of Mid­Somer is seething with hate, jeal­ousy, secret sins, thwart­ed ambi­tions, star-crossed love, kinky sex, and mur­der, mur­der, mur­der. Detroit and South L.A. have noth­ing on Mid­Somer vil­lages like Bad­ger’s Drift, Ferne Bas­set, Aspern Tal­low, and Mid­somer Mal­low. Styl­is­ti­cal­ly, the def­i­nite­ly sits in the “cosy” tra­di­tion of Eng­lish mys­ter­ies, the her­itage of Agatha Christie. Net­tles cre­ates one of the most like­able fic­tion­al detec­tives on the screen. There are plen­ty of neat lit­er­ary ref­er­ences to catch (espe­cial­ly to Jacobean dra­ma) for those who take plea­sure in such things, and plen­ty of wit­ty jibes at con­tem­po­rary mores for those who are more present-ori­ent­ed. The mys­tery plots are absurd­ly improb­a­ble, in the best Agatha Christie tradition.