"Midsomer Murders" Death and Dreams (2003)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Peter Smith

Writers:

Peter Hammond (screenplay)
Caroline Graham (characters)

TV Series:

"Midsomer Murders" (1997)

Original Air Date:

10 January 2003 (Season 6, Episode 2)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery

Plot:

The investigation into an elaborate suicide leads Barnaby to suspect the dead man may have had help pulling the trigger.

Plot Keywords:

Suspect | Alcoholic | Suicide By Gunshot | Drowning | Marching Band

Cast

John Nettles	...	DCI Tom Barnaby
Daniel Casey	...	Sgt Gavin Troy
Jane Wymark	...	Joyce Barnaby
Laura Howard	...	Cully Barnaby
Isla Blair	...	Dr. Jane Moore
Perdita Weeks	...	Hannah Moore
Mark Richards	...	Guy Moore
Anna Maguire	...	Ettie Moore
Jan Ravens	...	Sarah Wroath
Philip Fox	...	Gordon Leesmith (as Phillip Fox in opening credits)
Stuart Bunce	...	Tony Parish
Jonty Stephens	...	Jeff Haskin
Paul Brennen	...	Dean Hunniset
June Watson	...	Mary May
John Branwell	...	Mick May

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

UK:12 (VHS/DVD rating)

Company:

Bentley Productions

Movie Connections:

References Enter the Dragon (1973)

Grippingly atmospheric episode, though killers easy to identify and some elements defy credibility

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

In this episode, a murder disguised as suicide which Barnaby and his assistant are called to investigate is followed by two more. As usual in the Midsomer Murders, there is a host of characters presented as potential suspects that are far too obvious to be the true perpetrators of the deadly deeds, and thus quite easy to discount.

Yet as we watched this episode for the first time, both my wife and I correctly discerned that certain supposedly less obvious suspects were behaving very oddly from the very first scene in which they were told of the first murder, so we immediately suspected that, at the very least, they knew something they were not letting on about the murder, and more probably that they had been involved in it themselves. A combination of clever directing and skilled acting allows these clues to be immediately discernible to the careful viewer without it seeming unbelievable that the ordinarily trusting other characters interacting with the perpetrators in the film would not have noticed anything amiss.

The suspiciously behaving characters then are faded somewhat into the background as Barnaby and his junior pursue the various wild goose chases, until it becomes very obvious from the circumstances immediately surrounding the third murder that at least one of them must be responsible at least for that murder. At this stage, my wife and I correctly guessed that they were in fact responsible for all the murders.

When subsequently a cack-handed attempt is made on the life of Barnaby himself, our deductions were ever more strongly reinforced, and we knew it was only a matter of time before arrests would be made and the killers unmasked.

One of two elements that my wife and I felt to be absurdly incredible in the writing of this episode was that Barnaby's life is saved by a most unlikely coincidence whereby his assistant happens to drive out and find him in a field in the middle of the night at the precise moment that he is being murdered, when Barnaby has been all alone without his assistant for the whole of the rest of the night and the afternoon and evening before it. Had logic and consistency prevailed, his own death would have been assured, but clearly it would not have favoured the perpetuation of the Midsomer Murders franchise for the chief detective to be bumped off at this stage, so one envisions writers clutching at straws for ways to save his character compatibly with the position in which he had arrived.

The other element in the plot that is hard to swallow is that the murderers have only the flimsiest of motives for their first killing, a killing of one of their own flesh and blood who had never mistreated them or anybody else they know.

But this final revelation is perhaps deliberate as an indicator of their very insanity; and there is strong dramatic irony in this going unnoticed until the end, when one of their relatives has long held a high-powered job overseeing residents of sheltered accommodation who are certified mentally ill yet in practice relatively harmless.

For all its faults, this was a chilling episode, and especially brilliantly acted by those playing the murderers.