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*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Midsomer Murders: Orchis Fatalis starts at Mount Kinabalu, Borneo as Madeline Villiers (Marty Cruikshank) & Jimmy Wong (Sai-Kit Yung as Stuart Ong) find an Orchid called the Yellow Roth which happens to be the only one in existence... Jump forward 'Twelve Months Later' to the Midsomer Malham flower show where several local collectors are vying for first prize, Munro Hilliard (John Nettleton) wins it & Henry Plummer (Richard Attlee) comes a lowly & frankly disappointing third. The next morning & Madeline Villiers is found dead, poisoned with hemlock. DCI Tom Barnaby (John Nettles) & Sgt. Dan Scott (John Hopkins) are on the case, then shortly after Henry Plummer is found hanged. As Barnaby & Scott investigate everything leads back to the valuable Yellow Roth which Madeline smuggled into Midsomer & has left nothing but death in it's wake...Episode 3 from season 8 this Midsomer Murders mystery was directed by Peter Smith & is one of the better later stories. The script by Terry Hodgkinson has a more international flavour than usual, it goes beyond the innocent sleepy county of Midsomer to Borneo & feature rare exotic Orchids from all around the world & a suspicious Chinese businessman so Orchis Fatalis feels a bit different to the usual Midsomer Murders episode in that regard. This is a good thing & while there aren't as many suspects or red herring as I'd have liked the succession of twists & turns at the end save it, you would really have to be an armchair detective of your convictions to not change your mind about the identity of the killer at least once during the last half an hour or so. As a story I liked the Orchid angle & thought it was a neat premise to center a triple murder plot around, these Midsomer Murders mysteries are getting sillier & sillier anyway so just sit back & enjoy the good ones that work within themselves. At almost two hours with commercials one has to stick with it & pay attention even though sometimes they may seem slow going, Orchis Fatalis definitely comes together at the end with a satisfying & unexpected climax.This episode of Midsomer Murders actually has a bit of style, there are several flashback scenes which are in black and white except whenever the Yellow Roth Orchid is on screen which is left it's bright yellow colour & makes an interesting visual contrast against the rest of the picture which is black and white, it's a cool effect which works very well & comes across as pretty stylish for what it is. Otherwise it's business as usual with crisp clean photography & some more unmistakably English locations, Greys Court near Henley was used as the monastery while the University of Oxford botanic garden was used for the Orchid house where Margaret & Jonathan work. This is very well made with high production values as usual & the acting is very good from all involved as expected.Orchis Fatalis is one of the better episodes of Midsomer Murder from it's latter seasons, it's certainly well worth a watch if your a fan or if you like a good murder mystery with a bit of class.
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