Midsomer Murders - General Discussion

[Prevailing Wind]

I can watch for free on the streaming channel Pluto.tv, but they interrupt with commercials at the weirdest times.  I just like watching on Monday evenings with no commercials on PBS.

[peacheslatour]

9 hours ago, Prevailing Wind said:

I can watch for free on the streaming channel Pluto.tv, but they interrupt with commercials at the weirdest times.  I just like watching on Monday evenings with no commercials on PBS.

I get that. We're gonna miss it. I hope after they get done with their fund raising, they bring it back.

[isalicat]

and I watch it (at least twice a week) on BritBox, which so far is the best streaming service (for me) that I have discovered. I cancelled everything else except the free Peacock stream (on which I find little, other than a few old movies, that appeals to me). BritBox is like a vast treasure trove with Midsomer Murders being only one of the great golden baubles inside. If you like Midsomer Murders, try a newly arrived mini-series on BritBox called Dandelion Dead (its from 1994 but set in the 1930s, I believe) and quite wonderful (only two episodes, 1-3/4 hours each).

[Prevailing Wind]

I periodically sign up for BritBox, watch some series all the way through and then cancel for a few months. I do that with Netflix & Acorn, too. I can't afford to keep 3 pay-services full time.  (free) Pluto's weird, though. They have two sections, Live or On Demand.  In the LIVE section, you can scroll down to the Midsomer channel and watch whichever show is currently on. I frequently pick up in the middle of an episode. The On Demand section has almost all the seasons and you can watch 'em from start to finish.  What I've found really weird is sometimes they'll repeat a whole segment. They claim it runs 90 minutes, but every now and then, they go to commercial, and when the show comes back, they show the same thing that was running before the commercial, like 6 - 8 minutes of show gets repeated, and it still ends on time. I've seen these shows so much, I can pretty much tell if something's been cut out, but it doesn't appear that it has.  I don't get it.

I was watching "Who Killed Cock Robin" the other day and noticed two actors from Doc Martin were in the episode - Mrs. Tishell's husband, Clive, and Bert Large.  I've seen other Doc Martin actors in Midsomer, but this was the first time I noticed two in the same show.

[peacheslatour]

Quote

Bert Large

Good name for him.

[dleighg]

Am watching "Shot at Dawn" (a old feud between families over a WWI soldier executed for desertion) and the explicit nudity (artist's model) was quite a surprise. I can't imagine what they must have done to show this episode on PBS!

[peacheslatour]

2 hours ago, dleighg said:

Am watching "Shot at Dawn" (a old feud between families over a WWI soldier executed for desertion) and the explicit nudity (artist's model) was quite a surprise. I can't imagine what they must have done to show this episode on PBS!

Lol, I was watching a couple days ago on Ovation and one guy called another a "miserable twat".

[dgpolo]

3 hours ago, dleighg said:

Am watching "Shot at Dawn" (a old feud between families over a WWI soldier executed for desertion) and the explicit nudity (artist's model) was quite a surprise. I can't imagine what they must have done to show this episode on PBS!

Many, many years ago, it could be as many as 30 I was watching Poirot on WTTW, the PBS station in Chicago. Poirot, Hastings and maybe Japp were walking around a museum and they passed an art class with a live -nude- model. I was totally shocked, not because of the nudity but because WTTW allowed it to be shown, I would've thought they would have edited it in some way.

The first Midsomer episode showed siblings, nude, in bed with each other, I think an artist's model would be pretty tame after that.

[BookWitch]

Plus the naked dead guy out in the field. 

[scorpio1031]

And DS Jones in the shower

[Prevailing Wind]

8 hours ago, scorpio1031 said:

And DS Jones in the shower

Twice!  Once at the Barnaby's house and once in that cult place where he was "undercover."

[peacheslatour]

I just noticed something that I'm sure means absolutely nothing but Barnaby and Jones. Barnaby Jones. Old Buddy Ebsen detective show.

[scorpio1031]

2 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

I just noticed something that I'm sure means absolutely nothing but Barnaby and Jones. Barnaby Jones. Old Buddy Ebsen detective show.

Yeah I noticed it too cause I loved that show as well😅

[Prevailing Wind]

I only noticed it during a promo when the voice-over said "Barnaby and Jones."  Ashamed to say I giggled.

[peacheslatour]

I just finished watching Faithful Unto Death. What ever happened to dreamy Troy? He was a honey. Nothing against Jones, who I like very much as well.

[dleighg]

11 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

Nothing against Jones, who I like very much as well.

I'm further along, and I quite like Jones-- he's a very different personality (quite the ladies man LOL). Troy makes a cameo rather later (I think in Series 11).

[peacheslatour]

1 minute ago, dleighg said:

I'm further along, and I quite like Jones-- he's a very different personality (quite the ladies man LOL). Troy makes a cameo rather later (I think in Series 11).

Oh, good so he didn't get killed or anything. I also really like Gwilym Lee as DS Nelson.

[scorpio1031]

Just now, peacheslatour said:

Oh, good so he didn't get killed or anything. I also really like Gwilym Lee as DS Nelson.

No he was promoted:)

[peacheslatour]

24 minutes ago, scorpio1031 said:

No he was promoted:)

Excellent.

[isalicat]

4 hours ago, dleighg said:

I'm further along, and I quite like Jones-- he's a very different personality (quite the ladies man LOL). Troy makes a cameo rather later (I think in Series 11).

Funny - I just watched that specific episode (Series 11, Ep. 2) last night and Troy looks gorgeous. (Although, as with you, I like Jones very much as well.) I am rotating on BritBox between Midsomer Murders and Wallander right now (so less really serious, and really serious) and may watch a Shetland tonight to be really, really serious 🙂

[Llywela]

9 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

Oh, good so he didn't get killed or anything. I also really like Gwilym Lee as DS Nelson.

If you've skipped straight from Troy to Jones, you've missed a whole season in which Troy got promoted and Barnaby found himself with a hotshot young sidekick from London who didn't fit in at all in Midsomer (Scott, who really did just disappear with no explanation).

I really like Jones. He's my favourite of all the sidekicks - he fits in well and is a lot sharper than Troy ever was. Although the show is a bit weird about his backstory, since he has a definite Southern Welsh accent and occasionally talks about his childhood in Wales (although the dialogue implies North Wales, which does not match his accent) but then other times they imply that he is a local boy who grew up in Midsomer, which was Troy's story.

Edited January 5, 2021 by Llywela

[Prevailing Wind]

Ben (my fave) showed up in season nine. When George, at a crime scene, asks Tom where Scott is, Tom says he called in sick and they both sort of shrug. Tom asks the constable on the scene if he has a tie and would he like to be an acting DC - Thus we got Jones. Scott was only around for season 8.

Later, when Tom retires and we get John, I was greatly amused by all the townspeople that knew "Jonesy" - he never seemed that gregarious in previous episodes and now everybody stops him to talk to him. LOL.

[Llywela]

3 minutes ago, Prevailing Wind said:

Ben (my fave) showed up in season nine. When George, at a crime scene, asks Tom where Scott is, Tom says he called in sick and they both sort of shrug. Tom asks the constable on the scene if he has a tie and would he like to be an acting DC - Thus we got Jones. Scott was only around for season 8.

Like I said, Scott disappears with no explanation. 😉 He calls in sick so Jones acts up as replacement for the case in hand, because Barnaby feels naked without a sidekick, then Jones is promoted to DC and Scott is never mentioned again!

[peacheslatour]

7 hours ago, Llywela said:

If you've skipped straight from Troy to Jones, you've missed a whole season in which Troy got promoted and Barnaby found himself with a hotshot young sidekick from London who didn't fit in at all in Midsomer (Scott, who really did just disappear with no explanation).

I really like Jones. He's my favourite of all the sidekicks - he fits in well and is a lot sharper than Troy ever was. Although the show is a bit weird about his backstory, since he has a definite Southern Welsh accent and occasionally talks about his childhood in Wales (although the dialogue implies North Wales, which does not match his accent) but then other times they imply that he is a local boy who grew up in Midsomer, which was Troy's story.

It's not me that's skipping around. I don't have any fancy streaming services so I have to scrounge what I can from PBS and Ovation.

[BlackberryJam]

In, I think the Straw Man episode, doesn’t Scott have sex with one of the witnesses who later gets killed? I think they were trying to make the show edgier and sexier that season and it totally failed. 

[peacheslatour]

19 minutes ago, BlackberryJam said:

In, I think the Straw Man episode, doesn’t Scott have sex with one of the witnesses who later gets killed? I think they were trying to make the show edgier and sexier that season and it totally failed. 

Aren't cross dressers Bluebeards, spouse abusers, rapists and child molesters enough?

[BlackberryJam]

3 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

Aren't cross dressers Bluebeards, spouse abusers, rapists and child molesters enough?

You’d think! 

Troy, early on, is a younger actor playing a book role that is older, grosser, more homophobic, and if I remember right, racist. I don’t think people responded well to that and Troy’s edges were softened and I think at one point, a Cully/Troy relationship was possible...at least they kissed.

Scott was the new Troy with a “look, I’m sexy already. I don’t need to grow into it!”

[peacheslatour]

My favorite thing about DS Nelson was that he was always trying to tell Barnaby II about his landlady problems and Barnaby's response was perennially "I don't care."

[Llywela]

33 minutes ago, BlackberryJam said:

Troy, early on, is a younger actor playing a book role that is older, grosser, more homophobic, and if I remember right, racist. I don’t think people responded well to that and Troy’s edges were softened and I think at one point, a Cully/Troy relationship was possible...at least they kissed.

Scott was the new Troy with a “look, I’m sexy already. I don’t need to grow into it!”

Book Troy is a much more complex character than his TV counterpart - a horrible person, definitely, but complex. He's actually quite young when the series starts, so Daniel Casey at 25 was an appropriate age for the character when the show started. Appallingly racist, sexist and homophobic, yes, but they could perhaps have softened his edges by losing those aspects of the character and retaining some of the other things that made him more interesting than his perennially single TV self. Just to nod at him being the same person. He's married, for starters (but the marriage is not a happy one, he has little respect for his wife and is always on the hunt for a fling), and in some of the early books he bores Barnaby rigid by talking about his infant daughter all the time, he's absolutely besotted with the baby, the apple of his eye - by the time the series ends she's in school, daddy's little princess. He's obsessive about cleanliness and neatness, so the books are littered with throwaway details of Troy straightening pictures on walls, sweeping up crumbs off Barnaby's desk because he just can't bear to leave them there, twitching over a spot of dirt on his shirt, etc. He prides himself on his excellent driving skills (unlike TV Troy, whose driving is a bit of a joke). And for such an insensitive man, he is deeply sensitive about the tiniest perceived slight toward himself, craves praise and validation more than anything in the world, and can be extremely sulky when things don't go his way. He isn't a pleasant character but he does have a lot more facets than his bumbling, mild-mannered, not too bright TV counterpart, a completely different personality in every possible respect, and his life progresses in a forward direction through the novels.

Funnily enough, Scott having a fling with a witness/potential suspect is absolutely something Book Troy would have done!

Cully is also quite a different personality in the books, with a forward-progressing storyline that is very different than we see on TV (she gets married early on and moves away from Midsomer to forge a successful acting career, only returning for visits, unlike TV Cully who gives acting a go and then returns to Midsomer and has a string of dead-end jobs there just to keep her on-screen). It's quite a strange experience, reading the novels and seeing all the things that are the same and yet all the things that are different, the choices that were made to de-fang some of the regular cast (and remove the forward progression of their storylines) in order to create such a warm, comforting procedural TV show out of all those gruesome murders and at times fairly grotesque characters! Interestingly, not all of the books were adapted for TV, so reading the ones that weren't was quite exciting, as I didn't already know whodunit!

33 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

My favorite thing about DS Nelson was that he was always trying to tell Barnaby II about his landlady problems and Barnaby's response was perennially "I don't care."

This is exactly what Barnaby is like in the books when Troy bangs on about how many words the baby can say now or how little sleep he got last night with her teething, and so on.

[Prevailing Wind]

5 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

It's not me that's skipping around. I don't have any fancy streaming services so I have to scrounge what I can from PBS and Ovation.

Can you access Pluto TV?  (pluto.tv)  It's a FREE streaming service and they have Midsomer "On Demand" so you can watch 'em in order & skip over the ones you've already seen (or not)

[proserpina65]

On ‎05‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 4:52 PM, msani19 said:

I just don't remember this strange tension between Tom and his other DS's.

Tom was rather awful to Scott at the beginning, and never really warmed up to him.

 

On ‎07‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 1:52 PM, Suzn said:

never liked Joyce Barnaby and Cully was only interesting occasionally.  Joyce always seemed stiff and cold.  Sarah is like a breath of fresh air, she has a much more lively personality.  And I love Sykes.

I didn't mind Joyce most of the time.  I cannot stand Sarah.  If it were up to me, I'd dump her and get Barnaby together with the medical examiner.

On ‎01‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 7:19 PM, dariafan said:

 Eye candy its a toss up between Scott and Jones

For me, it's Scott all the way.  Although Jones does have a surprising great body.

 

[peacheslatour]

41 minutes ago, Prevailing Wind said:

Can you access Pluto TV?  (pluto.tv)  It's a FREE streaming service and they have Midsomer "On Demand" so you can watch 'em in order & skip over the ones you've already seen (or not)

Thank you. I'm actually pretty happy with the way things are. It's on every day on Ovation right now and twice a week on PBS.

[proserpina65]

23 hours ago, scorpio1031 said:

No he was promoted:)

Unlike Scott, who called out sick and then was never seen or heard from (or of, for that matter) again.  He just disappeared.

13 hours ago, Llywela said:

If you've skipped straight from Troy to Jones, you've missed a whole season in which Troy got promoted and Barnaby found himself with a hotshot young sidekick from London who didn't fit in at all in Midsomer (Scott, who really did just disappear with no explanation).

I really like Jones. He's my favourite of all the sidekicks - he fits in well and is a lot sharper than Troy ever was. Although the show is a bit weird about his backstory, since he has a definite Southern Welsh accent and occasionally talks about his childhood in Wales (although the dialogue implies North Wales, which does not match his accent) but then other times they imply that he is a local boy who grew up in Midsomer, which was Troy's story.

Scott is my favorite, but I do like Jones so much better than Troy, who was far too stupid to get a promotion, imo.  Jones actually has a brain.

10 hours ago, Prevailing Wind said:

Scott was only around for season 8.

Seasons 7-8.

Quote

Scott was the new Troy with a “look, I’m sexy already. I don’t need to grow into it!”

Damned right!

He was also smarter than Troy, and had the surprising ability to break into safes.

Edited January 5, 2021 by proserpina65

[scorpio1031]

50 minutes ago, Prevailing Wind said:

Can you access Pluto TV?  (pluto.tv)  It's a FREE streaming service and they have Midsomer "On Demand" so you can watch 'em in order & skip over the ones you've already seen (or not)

Between Pluto TV, the Roku Channel and IMDB tv, which are all free - it's great that they all carry Midsomer

[BlackberryJam]

25 minutes ago, proserpina65 said:

 

For me, it's Scott all the way.  Although Jones does have a surprising great body.

 

Scott was the best looking of all of them, but Midsomer Murders isn't a show about the eye candy. It's just fun...I mean, how many murders can there be in Midsomer?

[peacheslatour]

1 hour ago, BlackberryJam said:

Scott was the best looking of all of them, but Midsomer Murders isn't a show about the eye candy. It's just fun...I mean, how many murders can there be in Midsomer?

It's a fictional district isn't it? It could have a population that is quite large. Although it seems to be very rural. Lol, look at Cabot's Cove Maine on Murder She Wrote.

[Crankybroad]

DS Nelson was my favorite. It seemed he had to run in every episode. I enjoyed the humor his character brought. His reaction expressions were great. 

[peacheslatour]

1 hour ago, Crankybroad said:

DS Nelson was my favorite. It seemed he had to run in every episode. I enjoyed the humor his character brought. His reaction expressions were great. 

Barnaby certainly isn't going to do it! Just like on Vera. Poor Joe has to run in every episode.

[proserpina65]

19 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

Scott was the best looking of all of them, but Midsomer Murders isn't a show about the eye candy. It's just fun...I mean, how many murders can there be in Midsomer?

I really like eye candy.

17 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

It's a fictional district isn't it? It could have a population that is quite large. Although it seems to be very rural. Lol, look at Cabot's Cove Maine on Murder She Wrote.

Maybe Jessica Fletcher has moved to Midsomer and is really the one committing all these murders.

 

1 hour ago, peacheslatour said:

Barnaby certainly isn't going to do it! Just like on Vera. Poor Joe has to run in every episode.

One of the perks of being senior in rank.

[dleighg]

19 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

I mean, how many murders can there be in Midsomer?

at the end of one of the episodes, with a new side-kick (I think it was Scott), the DS said "there seem to be a lot of murders in Midsomer". Barnaby just says "Yes, it has been remarked upon."

[peacheslatour]

Quote

Maybe Jessica Fletcher has moved to Midsomer and is really the one committing all these murders.

Aha! I knew she was skulking around somewhere.

[welnoc]

Midsomer is a (fictional) county in England and is therefore comprised of many villages and towns. 

The murders don't take place in a single village. Causton is the main town and is where the CID is located. There's also Midsome Parva and Midsomer Magna, and of course, Badger's Drift as well as Little Worthy. 

There are probably a few more too!

[peacheslatour]

1 hour ago, welnoc said:

Midsomer is a (fictional) county in England and is therefore comprised of many villages and towns. 

The murders don't take place in a single village. Causton is the main town and is where the CID is located. There's also Midsome Parva and Midsomer Magna, and of course, Badger's Drift as well as Little Worthy. 

There are probably a few more too!

I love the name Badger's Drift.

[Prevailing Wind]

7 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

Maybe Jessica Fletcher has moved to Midsomer and is really the one committing all these murders.

I read once that she was the one committing all the murders, she wrote, and her real skill was getting other people to confess.

3 hours ago, welnoc said:

Midsomer is a (fictional) county in England and is therefore comprised of many villages and towns. 

The murders don't take place in a single village. Causton is the main town and is where the CID is located. There's also Midsome Parva and Midsomer Magna, and of course, Badger's Drift as well as Little Worthy. 

There are probably a few more too!

I saw a list once of all the towns/villages. OH, here it is... https://midsomermurders.fandom.com/wiki/Midsomer_Villages

[laredhead]

Going way back to "Death of A Stranger" which was shown on Ovation last night, can someone tell me why Marcia Trantor gave the taxidermist Carstairs money?  I think she was giving the $$ to Carstairs, or was it flashback to years earlier.  Also, had Graham Trantor discovered that the tramp was an actor who had been hired years earlier to impersonate Marcia's husband? I'm usually very able to follow some of the more intricate plots of MM, but this one had me a little confused by the end of the episode. 

[BookWitch]

Barnaby has a break through when the Dutch police tell him that the tramp is Simon Tranter. The Dutch police stopped him for speeding many years ago before he went missing, presumed dead. Another breakthrough occurs when Barnaby bumps into Linda Wagstaff at Causton theatre. She is admiring the photo of an actor from the past. Barnaby sees a resemblance to Grahame Tranter. So, the actor was Tranter’s father and also the tramp. Simon Tranter had been murdered by Fitzroy and the actor paid to take his place and go abroad. This is why the tramp was murdered. Ben Gurdie was killed because he had come across Grahame Tranter going through the tramps belongings. Tranter had asked to see Gurdie’s gun and then shot him with it. Pringle had been killed because he had seen a liaison between Fitzroy and Marcia Tranter.

Edited February 5, 2021 by BookWitch
fixing a tag

[laredhead]

Thank you, BookWitch, I guess the $$ exchange was the flashback to Marcia giving $$ to the actor and sending him away.  I need to watch these episodes earlier in the evening before I get sleepy - lol. 

[peacheslatour]

11 minutes ago, laredhead said:

Thank you, BookWitch, I guess the $$ exchange was the flashback to Marcia giving $$ to the actor and sending him away.  I need to watch these episodes earlier in the evening before I get sleepy - lol. 

I have the same problem i get very "sleepy" in the late evening.

[laredhead]

Question about location filming for the series.  I love the scenes filmed inside the houses of Tom & John, and the kitchens of both are bright and sunny.  Are those sets that have been constructed on a lot, or are those real houses and they have a contract to use them?  I especially love the gorgeous range in Joyce's kitchen in later episodes.  In earlier episodes, it looks like the house was attached to one or more other houses, but in later episodes their house looked like a stand alone house.  Maybe I should be paying more attention to plot instead of decor - lol.  

[peacheslatour]

1 hour ago, laredhead said:

Question about location filming for the series.  I love the scenes filmed inside the houses of Tom & John, and the kitchens of both are bright and sunny.  Are those sets that have been constructed on a lot, or are those real houses and they have a contract to use them?  I especially love the gorgeous range in Joyce's kitchen in later episodes.  In earlier episodes, it looks like the house was attached to one or more other houses, but in later episodes their house looked like a stand alone house.  Maybe I should be paying more attention to plot instead of decor - lol.  

Lol, I do that too. When I used to watch Downton, I couldn't tell you what most of the episodes were about but I could recount the flowers, dresses and decor down to the last detail.