WildPlum

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.

I use Britbox via the Amazon Fire and the episode finally showed up last night. (Britbox really needs to up their app game, as far as functionality and timeliness, but that is a rant for another time.) Interesting that they've spun off of DIP but dropped the murder aspect to mystery - I don't mind that, as I am not a fan of the "grim n gritty" school (Midsommer Murders and Vera are as far as I go in that direction), but I have been pondering why it feels like a great deal of the urgency is missing from the episodes, and I think it is the lower stakes involved. For instance, this episode, the who- and how-dunnit is mildly interesting, but that's all. The thief was obvious from the beginning and it was more like an episode of the old show Columbo, where you knew who the guilty party was at the beginning and you watched Columbo prove it* I think the reason is that the village is really too small - a 3 officer police station is not going to have forensics, not going to have a coroner - when they arrest the villain in this piece, it shows police trucks/cars and lots of police uniforms who must have come from the main station, where Humphrey's superior is located. It's my rural Western US bias, but here that means that main station is located 25-100 miles away (further in really rural areas). I do see Humphrey's boss's point. They don't need a DCI or even really a DS in a village that small and there really isn't enough work for them. Uniform patrol for routine small crime, yes - probably at least 3 officers so that there is someone on duty most of the time. That was why Midsommer worked - Barnaby was stationed in the largest town in the area, with a ton of small villages scattered around it, so he could go to villages with what looked like 20 houses, max, and be there in just a few minutes. The melodrama aspect was better in this episode, Martha's mother and Martha had some nice moments. The houseboat still annoys me. Also, Fleur! (The actress Anette Badland plays the coroner, Fleur Perkins, on Midsommer Murders). That accent seemed to come and go, even to my non-British ears, though. *I understand there is a spin-off coming called "Mrs. Columbo" with I think Kate Mulgrew in the title role and that there is a series on Paramount+ about a woman (Poker Face?) who has the ability to know when someone is lying and has to prove the guilty party - so Columbo seems to be making a come back, 50 years or so later.

Not sure what the definition of "cafe" is in the show, but it doesn't really seem to involve a kitchen or cooking - wine, tea/coffee, cheese and pre-made snacks perhaps?

I briefly thought the way this was going was:

On the plus side, no stupid fart jokes in this episode, but I thought this second episode was pretty "meh" as well. On the relationship front, "I think I will spend all of our savings on a houseboat to surprise the fiancee/wife without discussing it with her at all" is not a promising thing. On the mystery front, the setup was fairly good - they developed the urgency behind solving the disappearance pretty well. But:

Wasn't particularly taken with the last couple episodes this season and I particularly don't like the "we have presented this person a certain way for several episodes/seasons and now we would like you to believe they are the complete opposite"

It wasn't bad, but it wasn't very good, either. I'll probably watch another couple episodes to see if it comes into its own. I'd hoped the first episode would be stronger.

Started watching the series with the previous Barnaby - picked an episode at random, and, lol, managed to pick a Tom Barnaby episode in which "John Barnaby" guest stars as a creepy suspect. Season 4, ep 1, I think. Very dark episode, plodding pacing, none of the touches of humor that characterize later episodes. Not a single likeable character in the ep, and the relationship between Barnaby and Troy is odd. It's an early season, maybe I will move up a season of two and see if I like the tone better.

And, alas, I am all caught up now. Liked the expanded role for Winter in this season, I thought the actor handled it well. He was cardboard-y in his first season but had really relaxed in to it as the writers expanded his role. Very fond of Fleur. And, my, but Sarah has some regrettable college chums.

Watched episodes 3 & 4 - I like that secondary characters are getting some screen time and development (although I am not a fan of Marlon). I wish Catherine had a bit more to do.

What I had to do was click on the Christmas special, have it start playing and then hit the "back" button to show me seasons and episodes, then I could click on Season 12 and get the first 2 episodes. Just searching for Season 12 didn't work,

Just watched episode 2 and I think maybe the ME just transferred in from somewhere that she had been pressured about interpreting the results to support what that DCI wanted to hear? Also, given Vera's character as it has been established on the TV show, I'm not so sure that she'd have been quite so immediately sympathetic with the trans character. I think it would have been in character for her to fuss a bit first - even though she frequently says "I'm not judging, pet" she really does. She also generally suspects everyone and asks sharp questions but she was very hands-off with Rae.