Midsomer Murders County Case Files
DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:
Midsomer Murder started in 1997, now well over 100 episodes, that episode included in COUNTY CASE FILES. Lots of murdered corpses, multiple for each of the 15 episodes in this repackaged collection. Neil Dudgeon has achieved stardom playing DCI Barnaby since 2010. Expect murder, but also humor, delightful cinematography, character plot threads, and the largest guest star list every assembled in any TV series ever produced. This show has become so popular that actors line up and beg to be included as a victim or a killer. Midsumer Murders taught the world how to create good investigative crime TV. Midsumer Murders is classic and contemporary in one.
This is not season 20, for those of us waiting for a newly released series. Be warned. This package includes past series 16, 17, & 18. It’s great for anyone who has not yet purchased. This new packaging comes much more compact, saving 3/5 of the shelf space of the previous releases of these episodes.
SDH SUBTITLES are provided for those needed them for all 23 hours of viewing, even the bonus stuff.
Here’s an easier read listing of the feature-length mystery episodes:
The Christmas Haunting
Let Us Prey
Wild Harvest
The Flying Club
The Killings of Copenhagen
The Dagger Club
Murder by Magic
The Ballad of Midsomer County
A vintage Murder
Habeas Corpus
The Incident at Cooper Hill
Breaking the Chain
A Dying Art
Saints and Sinners
Harvest of Souls
-TexasTaxMan
Fans of British television are well acquainted with the series MIDSOMER MURDERS. The series still airs and has been on for over 20 seasons now. A show doesn’t last that long unless it has something to offer and this one does.
The county of Midsomer seems to be fraught with murder and when one occurs it’s up to DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) John Barnaby (Neil Dudgeon) to make sure that the culprit is apprehended. With the help of DS Ben Jones (Jason Hughes) each episode finds the duo looking into the latest murder to occur.
The series also presents Barnaby as just another guy, a man who knows how to do his job and do it well but who also has a home life. There he and his wife Sarah (Fiona Dolman) are dealing with their newborn child while trying to live life as normally as a detective’s life can be. In some episodes she even helps him with information he’s seeking.
The series isn’t like what we expect to find here in the US. Rather than hour long dramas that actually run closer to 45 minutes each, this series is composed of what would qualify as feature length film episodes, closer to 90 minutes running time. In so doing it gives us plenty of time to digest the actions taking place and to sift through the clues presented in each new case.
This collection brings together all 15 cases from Series 16, 17 and 18 which is when the character of John Barnaby took over his position. Each one offers their own little quirks that make them different from one another. One might have a magician performing in a local church to help raise money for its restoration, another a book club promoting the latest work of a deceased pulp fiction author that finds two people electrocuted by a roulette wheel like characters in his first book were. Whatever the facts of the case are you can be sure they won’t be your everyday average murder.
The series does what it must do to last this long and that is entertain. It does that in spades here with cases that hold your attention and the development of ongoing characters that you come to care for. That’s a point that some series never strive for and in so doing they short change the viewer. Here we care about them and want to know more about what goes on when not solving murders.
As with a number of series like this only one thing bothered me. Sure, we expect numerous murders in big cities like London but these are small villages here. If you are to believe shows like this the most dangerous place to live is a small village in England. Then again if these murders weren’t happening then we wouldn’t be enjoying a series that focuses on looking for those murderers would we?
The production values here and great to look at. They capture the look and feel of these villages in Midsomer County and portray what appears on the surface to be a calm and laidback style of living. At least if it wasn’t for people getting killed each episode.
The acting is top notch with each person involved making their characters believable. Dudgeon and Dolman actually feel like a married couple enjoying their new child and working together to make sure that feedings and rocking to sleep happen by one or the other. Hughes portrays a right hand man to perfection never overstepping his role but providing just the right amount of assistance needed.
While I’d heard of the series I’d never had a chance to see it until this set arrived. I’m glad it did. Now I can sit back and enjoy watching these over and over again, knowing the second time around who the guilty party is and watching for those tell-tale signs of guilt as the story unravels. And when I finish I’ll have to go back and seek out previous seasons to see if they match in quality. With little doubt in my mind I’m guessing they will.
-Mark Turner
DVD Wholesale Main Features:
Actors: Neil Dudgeon, Gwilym Lee, Hayley Mills, Amanda Burton, Clarke Peters
Directors: Renny Rye
Format: Box set, Color, NTSC, Widescreen
Language: English
Region: Region 1
Number of discs: 8
Rated: NR – Not Rated
Studio: ACORN MEDIA
DVD Release Date: May 8, 2018
Run Time: 1290 minutes
ASIN: B0791VZ9HT
