I have been binge-watching Midsomer, and concur with a previous reviewer's observations- religious people in general are consistently depicted as neurotics.
Chesterton's Father Brown once observed that it was easy to spot someone pretending to be a churchman because the imposter would spout melodramatic fire-and-brimstone things that no real believer actually goes around saying. Midsomer's Christians are like this - they deliver preposterous lines and histrionic behaviors that make me suspect that the writers are not acquainted with many real-life believers on which they could base believable characters.
In this episode, Jones comments on a discrepancy in the reports of two sets of church-going witnesses.
Barnaby's reply is: "That's religion for you, Jones. Brings out the irrational in people."
Seriously? A seasoned detective hears two conflicting accounts of events, and instead of concluding that one party is misrepresenting the facts, concludes instead that the witnesses are irrational because they are religious?
It suggests that the writer's determination to have Barnaby express his contempt for religion is so firm that he was willing to sacrifice Barnaby's normally keen powers of deduction.
