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Post by dem bones on Oct 31, 2011 21:47:21 GMT
Mother Julian closes in for a closer view of the teenage lovers in action, Midsomer Murders: A Sacred Trust Seven episodes into the series, and i'm not sure i will ever warm to Neil Dudgeon's DCI John Barnaby as i did to his illustrious predecessor, Tom 'is God!' Nettles. With Dr. Bullard the friendly pathologist having unzipped his last squelchy body-bag and his successor, sexy Dr. Kate Crawford (Tamzin Malleson) still finding her feet, DS Ben Jones is our last remaining link to the past! This has all been too traumatic. I look for nice Cully Barnaby and she is nowhere to be found. I am even beginning to miss Joyce's notorious culinary masterpieces in a big way. It's nobody's fault, of course. We can't begrudge Tom his retirement after failing to prevent a world record number of homicides in his superlative career. But Wednesday's episode, A Sacred Trust, went some way to making up for all this hurt. A creepy nun special, no less, showcasing the antics of a piss-artist priest, a peeping tom Prioress with a neat line in blackmail, an ancient sister in a wheelchair who gets around a lot more than she should, and a pretty young initiate who stands to inherit everything. Throw in teenage sex and dope smoking sessions in the priory grounds, trouser theft, trusty Ben in a habit, and old Mother Thomas Aquinas garotted in the hen house and it was near enough a throwback to the inspired lunacy of yesteryear! also, to celebrate Halloween, here's Tom and Cully being scary at close of The Magician's Nephew
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Post by andydecker on Nov 11, 2012 13:00:06 GMT
So I treated myself to the first series of post Nettles Midsomer Murders.
Didn't mind the change itself much, it was mostly better done then on american cop shows who always overcompensate . (Even if they had to make Jones and Bullard looking like idiots in the first ep.) And Nettles is not replacable. But it could have been worse.
But the first few eps were a bit limp. My rule of thumb has become: only one murder - lame story. Somehow they even managed to waste David Warner as an old psycho-racedriver sleeping with his supposed daughter. Truly disappointing was the ep with the mini-Stonehenge and new druids, what could they have done with this topic! And didn't.
But the last three were top of the game. Night of the Stag with Warren Clarke as a classic villein was a marvelous return to form, begining with a corpse in the cidre (this tastes funny, Barnaby muses before barfing), some demented apple-orchard farmers and a "let's don some antlers and rape the nubile young daughters in the neighboring village, all in good fun and a return for those olds customs". This one had some truly sadistic and meanspirited scenes. Loved it.
The last two were also quite good. The one in the convent Dem already wrote about - only three nuns left, heh - was fun to watch. And the last one about a murder in a group of birdwatchers was also hilarious. I guess the birdwatching society was not amused about being presented as a absolute nutters!
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Post by dem bones on Nov 11, 2012 22:00:12 GMT
Damn, i missed the birdwatchers! "The ep with the mini-Stonehenge and new druids": Is that the one where Ben grows a beard and buys a scarf to infiltrate the New Age cult as 'Cosmo Jones'? I liked the lecherous bloke who'd only become a believer because he thought he was going to see plenty of action in the "Love room." But you're right. That episode kind of fizzled out once Jonesy's cover was broken. Night of the Stag is brilliant! It's the first time I got so caught up in the story that I forgot to moan about it not being the same since John Nettles left. The sadistic murder by tree shaker is perhaps the most affecting since the burning of the innocent schoolteacher Sergeant Scott was sweet on in The Straw Woman.
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Post by andydecker on Nov 12, 2012 10:37:07 GMT
Yes, the tree-shaker That was wonderful. The birdwatcher was a lot of fun, now I know there is a rare bird called the hoopoe which was the bone of contention and a possible murder motiv here. Or the retired russian ballerina whose husband was killed. (A hoopoe and a ballerina, you have to love this stuff!) No, the one with Ben going undercover and manly rejecting the advances of the nice young girl was The Oblong Murders. The one with the druids was The Sleeper under the Hill. Unloved but decent farmer Preston want to restrict the access the the stone circle, which has the local druids in uprorar. (which are a truly lame bunch consisting of two chiefs and some nameless indians) Preston gets killed on the stonealtar and his intestines pulled out. There is his cold bitch of a wife, her "fencing" coach, an unruly poacher, a mysterious rich local historian and a local copper whose an old friend of good old Ben. I guess I as writer would milked the druid angle much, much more; considering that they already had done their weirdo-cult episode for the season in Oblong Murders this was unfortunate; maybe they better had shelved it and had done it right. Come to think of it, the series just begs for a story about a local farmer and huntsmen writing gory horror novels in the past and now living on his farm I saw that the current season had a civil war re-enactment ep - can't wait to see this. This topic has fascinated me since reading about such things first in a novel by Anthony Price War Games years ago. Even if this was basically a spy novel, Price did this historical/current themed novel thing so well.
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Post by Dr Terror on Dec 21, 2012 20:35:26 GMT
The new Midsomer episode on Jan 2nd features a horror film festival, murders inspired by deaths in horror films, and Caroline Munro & John Carson.
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Post by andydecker on Dec 23, 2012 11:37:30 GMT
This has the potential to be an embarassing disaster or a lot of fun. It really would be disappointing if it just would be some lukewarm obvious jokes. Can't wait Of course the dvd will be out in 2014 earliest, but still nice to know what is coming.
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Post by Dr Terror on Dec 23, 2012 11:44:54 GMT
There's a trailer for it on the MM Facebook page.
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Post by valdemar on Dec 27, 2012 20:42:46 GMT
All this (very sensible) talk about people having no common sense reminds me of the time I bought a large cake from a well-known high street retailer, commonly known by it's two initials, shown here, HAL9000 fashion: L&R. The cake had instructions, viz: 'Remove from packaging, cut into slices, and eat'. All those years I thought you just bought cake to throw at things. Thank you L&R, for setting me straight. And the big store that's not Tesco, thanks for letting me know that the bags of Brazils contained nuts - I'd have been lost without that essential bit of info. If you are fed up with being told stuff you already know, but the H&S nannies think you should be told, then I urge you to seek out a track called: 'Dont's'. by David Shrigley, where safety advice is taken to ridiculous levels. Remember: There is no such thing as a metal Frisbee.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Dec 27, 2012 22:22:59 GMT
All this (very sensible) talk about people having no common sense reminds me of the time I bought a large cake from a well-known high street retailer, commonly known by it's two initials, shown here, HAL9000 fashion: L&R. The cake had instructions, viz: 'Remove from packaging, cut into slices, and eat'. All those years I thought you just bought cake to throw at things. Thank you L&R, for setting me straight. And the big store that's not Tesco, thanks for letting me know that the bags of Brazils contained nuts - I'd have been lost without that essential bit of info. If you are fed up with being told stuff you already know, but the H&S nannies think you should be told, then I urge you to seek out a track called: 'Dont's'. by David Shrigley, where safety advice is taken to ridiculous levels. Remember: There is no such thing as a metal Frisbee. I remember working on the oil rigs just before they introduced safety certificates. I didn't have one and on my first trip on the chopper I saw an old guy filling in a form. "What's this for?" I asked "Safety certificate." "Do you need one?" "You'll need one soon. It's a two week course. Underwater escape from a chopper: injuries, Safe disembarkation, in flight emergency actions, emergency breathing system equipment, escape breathing system training, ditching and fire fighting, how to inflate this and that." "Does it help if we crash?" "No, If we crash we die." "What if we manage to land in the water?" " We die a bit later."
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Post by valdemar on Dec 28, 2012 9:59:15 GMT
Another thing - and it's a bit cruel of me, but whenever there's an unexplained air disaster, the media always say: ''Experts are trying to find the cause of the crash.'' To which I usually think to myself: ''Gravity.'' Whether or not there has been a collision, structural or engine failure, the cause of the 'plane and it's occupants hitting the surface of this planet is gravity. Nevertheless, it's still statistically safer to fly than drive - how many fewer people are run over by an aeroplane each year? ;D However, someone did once remark: ''There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.'' And Vic Reeves said: ''98% of all statistics are made up on the spot.'' Lieutenant Frank Drebin, a Sergeant in a special division of the Police force called 'Police Squad', when asked if a colleague would survive a shooting, said:''It's 50/50. But only a 10% chance of that.''
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Post by dem bones on Jan 2, 2013 11:03:06 GMT
The new Midsomer episode on Jan 2nd features a horror film festival, murders inspired by deaths in horror films, and Caroline Munro & John Carson. This has the potential to be an embarassing disaster or a lot of fun. It really would be disappointing if it just would be some lukewarm obvious jokes. Can't wait Of course the dvd will be out in 2014 earliest, but still nice to know what is coming. The Stella Harris film festival opens in Midsomer Langley at 8pm this evening and it is to be hoped that it builds on The Night Of The Stag episode and lives up to its horrible potential. Intriguingly, Death & The Divas' basic theme does not sound a million miles removed from that of my current novella on the go, Lord Probert's Nine Deaths Of Doctor Valentine (am up to improbably convoluted murder #3).
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Post by dem bones on Jan 3, 2013 13:08:12 GMT
Andy, if you can access the ITV Player, you can watch the Death & The Divas episode on-line. Without wishing to spoil it, I reckon you'll find it typical Midsomer mental and very entertaining. Sinead Cusack and Harriet Walter are excellent as the sparring scream queens, and Georgina Beedle gorgeous as the young Stella, but perhaps best of all is Pearce Quigley's magnificently odious Colin Yule, creepy horror fan, organiser of the Stella Fest and sometime knicker-thief. Of the special guests, Caroline Munro hams it up as the Evil Priestess in The Mummy Rises and John Carson gives good Victorian vampire in Stella's masterpiece, A Thirst For Blood. Stella promo pic for the cancelled Slave Girl The knicker nicker nabbed! The Evil Priestess! A pulse-freezing scene from 'sixties horror classic, The Mummy Rises!
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Post by killercrab on Jan 4, 2013 2:13:22 GMT
It was fun revisiting MIDSOMER MURDERS for this episode though I don't think I could handle it on a regular basis! Naughty Colin of course stole the show but I'd rather of seen *any* of Stella's films in place of Barnaby and his middle class village hocum. KC
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Post by andydecker on Jan 4, 2013 8:19:39 GMT
Andy, if you can access the ITV Player, you can watch the Death & The Divas episode on-line. Thanks, Dem! I tried, but they are a bit territorial. But it looks very good. Who would have thought that Hammer would leave such a lasting impact. And Caroline Munro is one of the lucky few. I read just last week that Victoria Vetri is in jail for attempted murder. Old age was not kind to a lot of the Hammer girls and gals.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 4, 2013 9:12:17 GMT
It was fun revisiting MIDSOMER MURDERS for this episode though I don't think I could handle it on a regular basis! Naughty Colin of course stole the show but I'd rather of seen *any* of Stella's films in place of Barnaby and his middle class village hocum. KC It's that "middle englanders are a bunch of psycho's and perves" aspect that got me hooked on MM and keeps me coming back. The Brown Bear looking spruce Anyone watch the first episode of Ripper Street (i.e., Leman Street), a kind of Victorian take on Whitechapel? "A hopelessly convoluted mess with some neat touches" was the house of dem verdict. Needless to say, the penniless, destitute, gin-sodden prostitutes are of the dressed-by- House of Fraser variety and have the most lovely teeth, while their other halves are professional bare-knuckle bruisers to a man. The opener - set six months after the murder of Mary Kelly - centered on a mad toff financing and starring in his own snuff movies. Victorian snuff Happy new year to you, mr. crab, mr. decker!
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