Like death and taxes, Midsomer Murders remains one of life’s less palatable certainties. Amid a veritable morgue’s worth of sub-par detective shows on ITV, since the demise of Poirot this is now the oldest and stinkiest of the lot. Mostly, it’s the smell of out-of-date cheese, with only the occasional whiff of self-awareness that threatens to save it from total ignominy. The show’s last moment of genuine interest came when its former producer Brian True-May explained that the predominantly all-white cast reflected its role as “a bastion of Englishness”.
Midsomer Murders: 15 mysterious facts
The last time I watched the show was for the almost defiantly abysmal Scandi crossover episode The Killings of Copenhagen, in which a parade of Nordic noir veterans cued up to pay homage to a vastly inferior show. Have things improved since that dramatic nadir? Barely. Although Neil Dudgeon and Gwilym Lee are pretty good as the investigating officers DCI John Barnaby and DS Charlie Nelson, looking admirably unjaded given the fearful tosh they have to spout.
