"Midsomer Murders" Hidden Depths (2005)

Director:

Sarah Hellings

Writers:

David Hoskins (screenplay)
Caroline Graham (characters)

TV Series:

"Midsomer Murders" (1997)

Original Air Date:

13 March 2005 (Season 8, Episode 6)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery

Plot:

Troubled solicitor Nick Turner falls from the roof of his home, is this suicide disguised as murder?

Plot Keywords:

Wine | Wine Cellar | Game Show Host | Bizarre Murder | Pub

Cast

John Nettles	...	DCI Tom Barnaby
John Hopkins	...	Sergeant Dan Scott
Jane Wymark	...	Joyce Barnaby
Barry Jackson	...	Dr Bullard
John Lightbody	...	Steve Hope
Vicki Hopps	...	Sarah
Lucy Russell	...	Felicity Turner
James Weber-Brown	...	Nick Turner (as James Weber Brown)
Nancy Carroll	...	Antonia Wilmot
Oliver Ford Davies	...	Otto Benham (as Oliver Ford Davis)
Sara Kestelman	...	Bernie
Robert Daws	...	Mike Spicer
Matthew Flynn	...	Jack Wilmot
Rebecca Charles	...	Jane
Simon Armstrong	...	Viv Marshall

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

UK:12 (VHS/DVD rating)

Filming Locations:

Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Company:

Bentley Productions

Quotes:

[first lines]
Steve Hope: [Sarah fondles his right buttock] Mmm, yes! Oh, it's you.
Sarah: Cheeky sod! Who else is it going to be?
Steve Hope: I have my admirers.
Sarah: In your dreams you do. Anyway, get a move on. I want you to do that shopping on the way back.
Steve Hope: How's it going inside?
Sarah: Mr Turner hasn't got up yet, and Mrs Turner is downstairs taking coffee with Mrs Wilmot. They're just rushed off their feet.

"Being locked in a cellar by a triple murderer is a better excuse than the car broke down." Another fine Midsomer Murders mystery.

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Midsomer Murders: Hidden Depths is set in the village of Midsomer Magna & starts as troubled solicitor Nicholas Turner (James Weber-Brown) is found dead after having fallen from the roof of Sandford House, an old renovated country manor turned into an apartment block where he lived with his wife Felicity (Lucy Russell). DCI Tom Barnaby (John Nettles) & Sgt. Dan Scott (John Hopkins) are on the case, at first they have trouble establishing whether Nicholas' death was suicide or murder. Sandford House gardener Steve Hope (John Lightbody) claims to have heard Nicholas shouting shortly before he took a dive of the roof & upon further investigation Barnaby discovers that Nicholas was in dire financial trouble & stealing his clients money, £150,000 to be exact. Shortly after rival solicitor Otto Benham (Oliver Ford Davis) is murdered in bizarre fashion, add that to the fact one of Nicholas' neighbours Jack Wilmot (Matthew Flynn) has mysteriously disappeared along with the discovery of fake vintage wine bottle labels, talk of secret underground cellars & Barnaby has a real puzzle on his hands...

Episode 6 from season 8 this Midsomer Murders mystery was directed by Sarah Hellings & this is yet another great entry in this generally excellent British crime drama series. The script by David Hoskins has plenty of twists & turns in it, in fact the whole story is turned on it's head in the climatic revelations. There's also some nice humour here with Barnaby & Scott locked in a wine cellar for the majority of the second half & the two have a nice little dig at each other in the final scene. The plot here is actually quite straight forward to follow, the final revelations are very clear & concise with really good use of flashbacks, in fact unlike many Midsomer Muders episode I think you would be able to catch the final fifteen minutes & pretty much 'get' it because the flashbacks literally spell it out so well. Hidden Depths surely features two of the most memorable, outrageous, silly & far fetched murders in the whole series, one guy is drugged, laid out on a lawn with a huge white target drawn on it with him in the middle being held down by croquet hoops & then he is murdered by having lots of bottles of wine shot at him from a medieval wooden catapult! The second murder consists of someone having a hollow TV set with a hole in the bottom placed over their head & asked questions while the killer drowns him by pouring wine into the set! While they are undoubtedly silly they are also very entertaining & pretty funny. On the negative side I thought the process with which Barnaby solved the case wasn't the best, he sure made a lot of leaps in logic, put a lot of things together in exactly the right way & made a lot guesses which just happened to be right. Then there's the way in which the killer disposes of his victims, it's all well & good making a statement & trying to be clever but all they end up doing is draw attention to themselves & their motives. There's also a really neat con trick in Hidden Depths which starts everything off & that too is explained in a really clear & well done series of flashbacks.

As usual shot in Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Hidden Depths looks great with very high production values, the usual effective music & fine photography. There are three murders in this altogether although none are particularly graphic they are certainly memorable. There is a little scene when one of the character's is seen to meet Princess Diana, the scene was maybe shot with a double (looking at the cast list this is confirmed) & is seen on a TV screen but this did surprise me a bit since the topic of the late Princess Diana is still a thorny subject over here & in the wake of her immediate death there was a blanket ban on any type of reference to Diana which has obviously been relaxed since but she still generates a lot of feeling here. The acting is really good as usual from a strong cast.

Hidden Depths is another great Midsomer Murders episode with enough incident, plot twists & memorable murders that should satisfy fans & armchair detectives in general everywhere.