Midsomer Murders (TV Series) Book of the Dead (2023) User Reviews

A fine episode!

[harrykivi · 6/10 · 13 December 2023]

"Midsomer Murders" is one of my favorite shows, I have said it numerous times before. That being said, the last few seasons of this series have been rather unimpressive. Wasn't a huge fan of "The Devil's Work", this episode "Book of the Dead" is not great either. It's a decent entry to the series.

Let's start with the good aspects.

. The production values are great. The episode is very well-directed, the music fits the scenery. The acting is good for the most part. Wasn't sure about Zak-Ford Williams, but Oliver Dimsdale and especially Selina Cadell give very good performances.

. There are relatable themes ( like losing touch with reality) touched upon and some interesting characters here and there. The murders are fun, though I thought they were similar to the ones in " Dying Art".

But..

. I agree with a previous reviewer, who said that this story is too easy. The mystery could have benefited from more twists and turns. The solution is rather trivial and agreed feels like something one has seen many times before.

. The subplot with Sarah wanting to win a pub quiz was an odd one. Sarah felt unlikeable and harsh.

Overall, a mixed bag.

6/10 HK.

Another excellent mystery

[lizzieqever · 8/10 · 18 February 2024]

This was a good mystery. I did guess the killer at the very end, but not until like a minute before the reveal.

Spoilers ahead...

One thing I liked about this mystery was at one point I was suspecting a female, but then the vicar was viciously drowned. I was thinking to myself they better not make the killer a female because there's no way any of the women that were possible suspects could've pulled off this drowning that the killer had to be pretty much one of a couple of men that were suspects.

I will say, I also thought very early on that this murder was going to be not about the treasure, but about the death that took place earlier. That didn't end up being the case. Obviously, the treasure was just a red herring, but that was pretty cool. Overall well done and entertaining.

In search of treasure!

[TJR21 · 10/10 · 11 December 2023]

What a wonderful addition to the series. Back to the village scenes we've all missed since COVID 19.

This new outing gave us another welcome return of Selina Cadell, playing an eccentric character with real panache.

The story and characters were really fun and it looked really good on screen. Direction and cinematography were excellent and production values were top rate.

I think it feels very fresh and was easy to follow with no convoluted areas in the script.

Music was very subtle once again.

Really enjoyed this one and will want to add this series to my collection when it's released. 10/10.

Return to mischief

[lisbethinsydney · 10/10 · 14 April 2024]

English eccentricity makes a welcome return to Midsomer in season 24. The series is actually watchable again, possibly due to better writing, better casting and a good dollop of mischief as far as the murder investigations are concerned.

(I'm not sure, though, of the strained attempts to conjure a sudden tension between Winter and Fleur, the octogenarian pathologist, who, like Vera, would have been pensioned off ages go in real life.)

The Book of the Dead features classic Midsomer eccentrics played by the familiar Selina Cadell and Omid Djalili and a very English illustrated puzzle book. In A Climate of Death, Nathaniel Parker is paired with Julie Graham and demonstrates what living in a "green" village might entail - lights out a 7.00pm for a start. Someone is having a lot of fun here and it is very entertaining to watch.

Stale with rehashed storylines and too much monologuing

[Delegator · 5/10 · 13 December 2023]

I am starting to get worried about Midsomer's ability to stay interesting. Not that I expect wholly unheard of plots and characters after 24 seasons, but this episode was so hackneyed as to be absurdly easy to figure out. That is ironic, really, given the plot about a puzzle that nobody has solved. But, they motivation of "related to somebody killed when something happened years ago" has been done to death in so many ways, and the absurd coincidence of people moving into the same town made it worse. Taking the usual pub quiz and making it a memorial quiz made the back story so obvious. Why not just call it the "motivation for murder is in the name" quiz?

Even the details were absurd - somebody concocts a scheme to defraud people by making...fake gas detectors? Seriously? Add in a set of side stories that were completely uninteresting (the priest, who was much better as the boyfriend of a priest in Grantchester).

So all in all a weak episode. But the longer term issue is the dependence on monologuing at the end of both episodes this season. I think a good 5 minutes of each was devoted to the villain telling you what you already knew, and occasionally making obvious the details that were easily inferred. Maybe slow the theme song back down to what it used to be and spend less.m time sooon feeding the plot.