Wow. Where to begin? The current season of Midsomer has not been the best. The first three episodes have all been less than stellar. But Dressed To Kill, the fourth episode, is just..... awful. No, let me rephrase that: WHAT. A. HOT. MESS.
The story is all over the place and nothing seems to make sense or go together. It's set in a small village where apparently lots of people are into cross-dressing, so we get an upcoming drag queens' night which was voted to take place over some bizarre production of Romeo And Juliet that was going to feature an in-his-fifties washed up actor making a comeback as Romeo. Right... (and speaking of bizarre, the would-be Romeo and his mother are played by actors who appear to be the same age.) Then we also have a domino festival, championed by the first murder victim, which falls more in line with the "quirky suburban" activity typically found in Midsomer - but it gets hardly any screen time at all and winds up being basically irrelevant. And last but not least, a strange case of Munchausen By Proxy syndrome coupled with child imprisonment going on in one of the local families.
It's unfortunate that Sophie Stone was given such a drecky story in which to appear - she is such a good actress that she manages to make her character not only credible (something no one else in the cast is able to achieve) but even almost sympathetic, no mean feat considering how unpalatable her plot line is. Her talents notwithstanding, the episode is pretty much unsalvageable. Watching it, it felt almost as though Barnaby and Winter weren't even doing any real investigating at all, they were just perfunctorily going though the motions of trying to look like they were, while everything just sort of happened around them. And really, is there anything M. E. Fleur *hasn't* done in her life? Now we find out that she also has a drag persona in her past. Sure, whatever...
I would advise anyone considering watching this one to observe the self-counseling mantra of George Costanza from "Seinfeld": "Think of what you would normally do, and then do the opposite."
The story is all over the place and nothing seems to make sense or go together. It's set in a small village where apparently lots of people are into cross-dressing, so we get an upcoming drag queens' night which was voted to take place over some bizarre production of Romeo And Juliet that was going to feature an in-his-fifties washed up actor making a comeback as Romeo. Right... (and speaking of bizarre, the would-be Romeo and his mother are played by actors who appear to be the same age.) Then we also have a domino festival, championed by the first murder victim, which falls more in line with the "quirky suburban" activity typically found in Midsomer - but it gets hardly any screen time at all and winds up being basically irrelevant. And last but not least, a strange case of Munchausen By Proxy syndrome coupled with child imprisonment going on in one of the local families.
It's unfortunate that Sophie Stone was given such a drecky story in which to appear - she is such a good actress that she manages to make her character not only credible (something no one else in the cast is able to achieve) but even almost sympathetic, no mean feat considering how unpalatable her plot line is. Her talents notwithstanding, the episode is pretty much unsalvageable. Watching it, it felt almost as though Barnaby and Winter weren't even doing any real investigating at all, they were just perfunctorily going though the motions of trying to look like they were, while everything just sort of happened around them. And really, is there anything M. E. Fleur *hasn't* done in her life? Now we find out that she also has a drag persona in her past. Sure, whatever...
I would advise anyone considering watching this one to observe the self-counseling mantra of George Costanza from "Seinfeld": "Think of what you would normally do, and then do the opposite."