The 4th season of "Midsomer Murders" has been up and down for me. It started with watchable "Garden of Death", continued with an awesome "Destroying Angel". Then proceeded with an awful "The Electric Vendetta" and mediocre "Who Killed Cock Robin?". "Dark Autumn" definitely gets the season back on track, but it's not as good as I wanted it to.
Let's start with positives, shall we?
. The production values of this episode are wonderful as usual. Jeremy Silberston's direction is astute and the use of fifties music created an unsettling atmosphere to the scenery. The cast's also pretty good. Alan Howard and Celia Imrie are charismatic in their roles. Robert Glenister and Nicky Henson fine enough.
. The murders here are brutal and the story of "Dark Autumn" is definitely dark. The characters are well-developed and plot twists mostly intriguing. Really liked the game between the villagers that ends Tom Barnaby winning.
But...
. "Dark Autumn" took a while to get started for me (about 30 minutes). Before that, like one reviewer put it, is interviewing and not much else.
. The episodes does lack of quirkiness, which has been in the previous episodes. Some gentle humor would have lightened the tone.
. Even though the killers identity was quite surprising, the motives for the murders were very stupid ( Just to kill three people, because you didn't like them feels ludicrous).
Overall, I liked "Dark Autumn", but it's not one of my personal favorites.
7/10 HK
Let's start with positives, shall we?
. The production values of this episode are wonderful as usual. Jeremy Silberston's direction is astute and the use of fifties music created an unsettling atmosphere to the scenery. The cast's also pretty good. Alan Howard and Celia Imrie are charismatic in their roles. Robert Glenister and Nicky Henson fine enough.
. The murders here are brutal and the story of "Dark Autumn" is definitely dark. The characters are well-developed and plot twists mostly intriguing. Really liked the game between the villagers that ends Tom Barnaby winning.
But...
. "Dark Autumn" took a while to get started for me (about 30 minutes). Before that, like one reviewer put it, is interviewing and not much else.
. The episodes does lack of quirkiness, which has been in the previous episodes. Some gentle humor would have lightened the tone.
. Even though the killers identity was quite surprising, the motives for the murders were very stupid ( Just to kill three people, because you didn't like them feels ludicrous).
Overall, I liked "Dark Autumn", but it's not one of my personal favorites.
7/10 HK