It's going to take some getting use to Midsommer Murders without Tom and Joyce Barnaby. Many of the standard elements of the series are there with its posh girls' school setting, a number of disagreeable characters, a quirky murder method, top notch production values, and excellent supporting cast. And it was a treat seeing so many beautiful vintage cars. It starts with a car race and the discovery 45 years later of the race winner's body in a unused barn on the school's property, the driver evidently committed suicide. Some years later, the school is holding a fund raiser with a vintage car show as the draw. Two murders soon follow and John Barnaby thinks there may be a link between these murders and the much earlier suicide of the racer. Add to the mix drug dealing, sex and animosity and you have plenty of motives and suspects. Neil Dudgeon as Barnaby did a nice job and there was a bit of humor in the scenes where three neighbors stop by his house to welcome him to the neighborhood. Barnaby was too stoic in the last scene where the murderer has him trapped and the scene was pretty lame. But it did have DS Jones saving Barnaby and thereby redeeming himself from an earlier investigative error he had made. It's too early to say whether or not Dudgeon can overcome Nettles' shadow but this episode was good enough to make one keep watching to see what happens.
Review of Death in the Slow Lane
