WildPlum

It felt like the writers were really pushing the Sims/Chalmers 'ship this season (and there was a lot of touching going on between them in the 5th episode). But, yeah, Sims snooping in Mike's office and telling Gina before she actually really knew anything seemed like something an office of her rank (or her character) would never do. Bringing Tami Nielsen back and watching all the characters dancing had an ominous "this is the end of the series" feeling, though. And we lasted how many ever seasons without Mike adding to his wife collection. Amazing.

The most recent episode (the Seeker episode) had the absolute longest "Yes! I did it! And this is why and how I did it!" I have ever seen in a mystery episode.

If you liked Midsomer, you might try Chelsea Detective on Acorn. Same kind of quirky murder mystery. It has the unfortunate Acorn theory of "4 episodes? Yes, that is an entire season". We are on Season 2 and they replaced his DS from season 1 (unfortunate, I liked Sonita Henry in the role) and are featuring a bit more secondary cast, there are 2 DCs and a new DS this season.

Well that season went by fast ... Mixed bag, but some good stuff.

Ah, so that's what happened to Trudy's brother Ray. Lol, sounds like he has been reading a few too many management and PR books lately...

So Mike just ... drops the the prosecution of the "nuns"? Yeah, no, not even here in Oregon, where pot is legal, does that fly.

I'm somewhere early in Season 9 (just saw the episodes with Crabtree in prison and William Shatner playing Mark Twain). I started watching at Season 6 or so. I'm ... torn. There is SO much silliness in SOME episodes that I want to FF over them, yet there are also some reasonable mysteries and some good character moments. I enjoy Murdoch and Crabtree, a little less so Julia and Brackenreid. I definitely read the episode synopsis before I watch an episode and have given some episodes a pass. Does the "silliness" level stay the same or get worse as the series goes on?

While I like the way Brokenwood has been bringing back characters (particularly this season) sometimes I can't remember who they are or what the back story is. I thought they did a good job helping me remember who Jools was. This IS the 9th season, and my memory for a character who was in the series 7 - or however many - years ago is not that good. So at this point we have: The pastor/preacher His boyfriend Dennis the lawyer. Liked the way, first episode, he kept coming up with more and more far-fetched explanations of his client's innocence and then just gave up. Trudy (I forget, what happened to her brother?) Missy Frodo (of course) Jools I think we've seen the pharmacist as well? It would be nice to have Miss Marlow back, maybe just as a cameo.

I think what we were seeing is what the DIP sets look like when the show isn't filming - particularly Catherine's bar looked very odd and kind of shabby in the wide shot.

The season opener was fairly good - I have seen some (very) local theater that was not really all that much better, lol. The murder weapon/method was a little too contrived - if he had been standing just an inch or two off, all it would have done is clonked him on the head (which, really, if it had fallen from high enough might have done the job anyway). Might have been enough just to drop a single heavy fixture rather than trying to go to unlikely electrocution. Love that Kristen, who has no love life of her own, is getting actively nosy/defensive about everyone else's. And that Gina invited Kristen to the theater, completely separate from anything to do with Mike. Missy and Trudi (Trudy?) are two similar strong-willed, independent women and I hope we see more of them, although I still don't understand, given what she was (twice) convicted of, Trudi is free. I suspect Mike's not-really-quite-ex will play a role this season. Which, was funny, given "Captain Cook's" role. Unless you are talking about a setting in Hawaii (where Captain Cook was killed on his third visit for annoying the heck out of the islanders yet again), kind of hard to work Captain Cook into a US production, just the way the Statue of Liberty doesn't really work in an NZ production.

Well THAT was an expensive reconciliation. "Hey, let's just book last minute flights to the Caribbean, how expensive could it be?" I think it might say something about your relationship that it only really works on a tropical island where there is a lot of rum. Overall, I give the series a 2 out of 5. Some of the mysteries were good, the stationhouse staff grew on me over the episodes, liked the setting. Really, really disliked the personal storylines around Humphrey, Martha, IVF, her mother, Archie. Humphrey was my second-favorite DI on DIP so it took a lot to make me dislike him (for the most part) on this show.

Lol, duplicate content!

I saw an interview with the actor who plays Archie and he mentioned there are 6 episodes and

I think this was the 4th and last episode this last week (which, again, did not show up in my Britbox app at all, I had to use search on Amazon Fire to find the series because the Britbox app does not have a search function, like the Acorn app does). I was pretty sure the cliffhanger series ending would be Humphrey seeing Martha kiss whats-his-name (Archie?) - so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. But I am finding I really don't like Martha or her mother or the rival love interest or the entire IVF storyline, especially as Martha doesn't seem to actually want children. Although, in Martha's mother's defense, I do not believe that any of the info about IVF or failed pregnancies has been shared with her, so all she knows is that her daughter doesn't seem all that happy with her present circumstances - still, pushing/abetting an old suitor on your married daughter and being rude to your son-in-law is not very nice behavior. The series just doesn't hold my interest the way Midsommer Murders (with John Barnaby) or Vera does, or even Humphrey's episodes on DIP - although the scenery and the characters, and secondarily, the who-done-it murders, on DIP are the stars. Humphrey's also getting a bit "long in the tooth" to be such a bumbling man child as well. Although, lol at the duck named Selwyn. I do not think the Commissioner would be flattered to have a waddling duck named after him.

Interesting, I thought I'd read the "Mrs Columbo" show was in currently development. Maybe the article was using that as a working title for Poker Face. Which I haven't seen because, for reasons that are not particularly logical, while I will pay for streaming Britbox, Acorn and Great Courses/Wondrium, I will NOT pay for second-tier OTA channels, like NBC, CBS, ABC.