Midsomer Murders: Master Class is set in the small Midsomer village of Devington where eighteen year old pianist Zoe Stock (Lydia Wilson) has won an opportunity to attend a prestigious music school run by Sir Michael Fielding (James Fox), Zoe is to perform for the ultimate prize of international recognition & a professional contract against two fellow students Orlando (Matthew James Thomas) & Francesca (Katherine Press). While taking a walk by a river Zoe sees a woman dressed in white carrying a baby, then moments later Zoe sees the woman fall into the river & drown, DCI Tom Barnaby (John Nettles) investigates but no body is found & no trace of the baby is discovered either. However Barnaby has his suspicions & remembers an incident where a woman drown in the same spot eighteen years earlier, suspecting something is wrong Barnaby soon finds himself investigating a murder when Orlando is found hanging & that's just the start...
Episode five from season thirteen this Midsomer Murders mystery was directed Renny Rye & is surely one of the most ridiculous & silly the series has to offer, once all is revealed & all is explained at the end I just couldn't take Master Class seriously at all & found it hard to stop shaking my head in amazement. For a start the script is extremely slow going, apart from the mystery of the drowning woman it's over an hour before anything really happens with the first murder, that's just too long to wait & far too much exposition & padding to wade through with nothing to really maintain your interest or hook you. However where Master Class becomes ridiculous & in a way one of the series most memorable episodes is at the end when the motives for murder are revealed, I mean a guy who wants to have sex with his daughter & granddaughter to pass his genes on & produced the ultimate pianist is just such a silly concept, who came up with it & did they think that anyone watching would be convinced by it in the slightest? Then there are Zoe's parents who knew a lot of the background to what was going on so why did they let Zoe audition & then stay at the music school in the first place? The two eventual killers don't even get to say anything at the end as they just led away, as an over the top Hollywood thriller Master Class might have been fun but as a straight laced, serious British crime drama Master Class is just one of the most ridiculous things I've seen in ages. I don't really know how Zoe would have remember something so vividly she never even saw properly when she was a one year old baby either, in fact you could pick Master Class apart bit by bit with character motivation & decisions that make no sense.
Despite the flashback being set in 1993 the woman seen seems to be wearing clothes from the 70's for some reason, I understand the makers wanted to emphasise the events took place in the past but it doesn't look right. The kills when they eventually come are standard fare, a hanging & a slit throat. Well filmed as usual though & there's plenty of classical piano music featured if that's your sort of thing but I'm very much with DS Jones when he says it's not his sort of music. Master Class looks nice enough & has that unique British appearance, Dorchester Abbey in Oxfordshie was used as Saint Cecilia's Abbey while St. Katharine's Convent was used for the location of Devington Hall. The acting is good from a solid cast.
Master Class is both one of the silliest & therefore most memorable Midsomer Murder episodes, I can't say I liked it that much & found too many holes in it. Not one of Midsomer Murders finest two hours.
Episode five from season thirteen this Midsomer Murders mystery was directed Renny Rye & is surely one of the most ridiculous & silly the series has to offer, once all is revealed & all is explained at the end I just couldn't take Master Class seriously at all & found it hard to stop shaking my head in amazement. For a start the script is extremely slow going, apart from the mystery of the drowning woman it's over an hour before anything really happens with the first murder, that's just too long to wait & far too much exposition & padding to wade through with nothing to really maintain your interest or hook you. However where Master Class becomes ridiculous & in a way one of the series most memorable episodes is at the end when the motives for murder are revealed, I mean a guy who wants to have sex with his daughter & granddaughter to pass his genes on & produced the ultimate pianist is just such a silly concept, who came up with it & did they think that anyone watching would be convinced by it in the slightest? Then there are Zoe's parents who knew a lot of the background to what was going on so why did they let Zoe audition & then stay at the music school in the first place? The two eventual killers don't even get to say anything at the end as they just led away, as an over the top Hollywood thriller Master Class might have been fun but as a straight laced, serious British crime drama Master Class is just one of the most ridiculous things I've seen in ages. I don't really know how Zoe would have remember something so vividly she never even saw properly when she was a one year old baby either, in fact you could pick Master Class apart bit by bit with character motivation & decisions that make no sense.
Despite the flashback being set in 1993 the woman seen seems to be wearing clothes from the 70's for some reason, I understand the makers wanted to emphasise the events took place in the past but it doesn't look right. The kills when they eventually come are standard fare, a hanging & a slit throat. Well filmed as usual though & there's plenty of classical piano music featured if that's your sort of thing but I'm very much with DS Jones when he says it's not his sort of music. Master Class looks nice enough & has that unique British appearance, Dorchester Abbey in Oxfordshie was used as Saint Cecilia's Abbey while St. Katharine's Convent was used for the location of Devington Hall. The acting is good from a solid cast.
Master Class is both one of the silliest & therefore most memorable Midsomer Murder episodes, I can't say I liked it that much & found too many holes in it. Not one of Midsomer Murders finest two hours.