I've always liked this one and can't really understand other reviewers' distaste for it, there's plenty to enjoy, although the murders themselves are slightly too silly to make this one a classic. Firstly, I thought the performances from some of the guest characters was excellent, Samantha Bond as Arabella, Marcia Ashton as Biddy, Brian Capron and Gemma Craven as the Hicks's. But above all, I thought George Cole was outstanding as Lionel. There's plenty of humour in this one, particularly involving Mayor Hicks (so glad they would bring that character back for another outing). As others have said, the opening sequence was superb. Yes, the baguette fight was silly and we could have probably have done without it.
So to the murders themselves. They're probably what lets this episode down most. For the first one, Henry had been shot and was dead in his wheelchair. Why did the killer then feel the need to cause the chair to steer into the milk float? And the machine gun murder of Johnny Hammond, as someone else said in the IMDB Goofs section for this episode, "Too stupid to live", he had plenty of time to dive out of the way of the bullets, and the same goes for the attempted murder of Arabella, all she had to do was run to the side and out of harm's way. But how many times have we seen that on shows? When someone's been chased by a car they invariably continue in a straight line down the road instead of diving to the side for safety.
So to the murders themselves. They're probably what lets this episode down most. For the first one, Henry had been shot and was dead in his wheelchair. Why did the killer then feel the need to cause the chair to steer into the milk float? And the machine gun murder of Johnny Hammond, as someone else said in the IMDB Goofs section for this episode, "Too stupid to live", he had plenty of time to dive out of the way of the bullets, and the same goes for the attempted murder of Arabella, all she had to do was run to the side and out of harm's way. But how many times have we seen that on shows? When someone's been chased by a car they invariably continue in a straight line down the road instead of diving to the side for safety.