Midsomer Murders/John Nettles/Neil Dudgeon

Nail Dudgeon is a honey. Did you see the marathon of a few weeks ago which featured Before-They-Were-Famous actors in bit parts, Peter Capaldi and Orlando Bloom, etc?

I can't stand the new Barnby, he always looks annoyed. And I couldn't care less about his home life.

Netflix had the first 19 seasons of Midsome Murders and last winter, I watched 'em all. John Nettles is my favorite, but I'd fuck Neil Dudgeon, too. And all the assistants. Line 'em up.

It must have been humiliating for Laura Howard, the actress playing Cully, to be replaced by a dog.

Cully was a pointless character, with an endless supply of old school friends/possible murderers.

Don't get me started on how idle that Joyce was either, why didn't she get a job?!

Because she was home cooking for her husband!

Joyce was busy with her volunteer work and choral singing.

Joyce was a terrible cook.

I'd love a threeway with Sargents Troy and Scott!

No longer on Netflix, but it’s on Roku with a commercial here and there.

John Nettles and his sidekick Ben Jones were my favorite detective duo on this series.

I don't care for the new Barnaby. Dudgeon's pursed lips and turned up nose always make him look like he's smelling a bad odor.

Troy always seemed like the type to fart loudly in the car and scratch his balls instead of minding the road!

I enjoy watching MSM more than most prestige television. It’s pure escapism and not as grim as most scandi detectives.

The thing I love about Midsome Murders is that there is never just the one murder. It always unleashes a chain reaction violent death.

No one is safe in Midsomer!

Love Midsmoer Murders. And I love how the new coroner puts the new Barnaby in his place with her sharp tongue.

To me (apart from Murder, She Wrote, of course) MM is great comfort crime mystery entertainment where you enjoy around 90 minutes of cozy countryside murder mystery. In the early seasons though they had a better talent to create larger than life characters like the mother and son duo in Badger's Drift (which, I believe, is the first episode of the show, Murder in Badger's Drift).

I wasn't a big fan of Cully, while Joyce I thought of as a running joke.

Joyce and her cooking were a running joke.

Cully was just a device. She had very little consistent storyline. Whatever they needed someone to do, they just slathered onto Cully.

Joyce had a great talent to be around the first murder of the episode and sometimes several more. It's almost like the first Barnaby couldn't be bothered to show up at the crime scene unless Joyce is there. I think that's real love (or he was hoping she was the murder victim?). I loved Cully. There is an episode where she performs a stage play at a local amphitheatre and she is in the middle of her big monologue and right there her dad gets an epiphany and solves the murder and without regard stands up and leaves and distracts his daughter in that pivotal moment. I always felt sorry for her having such a rude, self centered dad.

r3, Cully sounds more like a dog's name than a human's name anyway.

My favorite sidekick for the new Barnaby series was Gwilym Lee. For some reason, the new detective Nick Hendrix leaves me cold even though he's not bad looking.

In my opinion, Jason Hughes was the best sidekick (so far). Although he's just average looking, his character of Detective Ben Jones was better developed and he had a sense of humor. You also saw some story lines about his personal life. I did find his cleft chin very distracting. LOL.

Jane Wymark had and still has horrid hair.

I just discovered this series and have enjoyed watching it.

Still in the early seasons but several things have struck me. First is how concerned everyone is about their family name and/or standing in the community. Coming from a working class family, I would find an attempt to blackmail me regarding some "family secret" to be more hilarious than frightening.

Also, in several of the earlier episodes, the killer usually appears "normal" until the fantasy world they have constructed for themselves hits reality. Once that switch is flipped, they just give up all pretense on sanity and go on a rampage.

But I do enjoy the beautiful English countryside and the architecture. A nice, calm distraction.

R16 I think he had the ephinany at the end of The Killings at Badger's Drift (a name the murder victim had mentioned before their murder finally making sense in context), but he didn't get up. Was there another instance?

I love the village names: Badger's Drift, Midsomer Mallow, Aspern Tallow to name a few!

Love the show. Love the books too. Charming homes and crazy characters. One of my fav episodes is the hot mailman who fucks everyone along his route.

I love the one with the bunch of women who meet to bet on the stock market. The old lady getting whacked with her own cane made me LOL. "Bookie's Daughter!"

[quote] I think he had the ephinany at the end of The Killings at Badger's Drift (a name the murder victim had mentioned before their murder finally making sense in context), but he didn't get up. Was there another instance?

The one I was referring to, at r16, was when Barnaby realizes that two suspects share the same odd way of quoting a phrase and he realizes that they are mother and daughter plotting the murder of the one who they held responsible for the husband's / father's death.

In one of the early episodes with the new Barnaby I noticed, during a close up, that Dudgeon had a huge nasty pimple in his ear. I wish I could remember which episode. Joyce was irritating as fuck and really did have bad hair. Haven't the make-up and hair people discovered mousse? Her hair is so thin and flat it looks like a skull cap.

I thought that was the charm, and point, of the show that the locals didn't look like supermodels in Midsomer? Especially in the early seasons.

R25 that's the long and the tall of it! Thanks for reminding me..

I just started watching this series on Roku.

I think Detective Sergeant Troy is appealing, in a Brit sort of way. Tall and and has reasonably straight teeth. Good facial acting.

I love this show! My favorite character is"Jones" ('Jonesy' to me), Jason Hughes. Very masculine.

My favorite episode is Season One, Episode 3: "Faithful Unto Death," with the 45-year-old Roger Allam, late of "Endeavour."

In the beginning, Cully's theatre involvement offered inspiration for "light-bulb" moments to help her father solve the crimes. I suppose the writers ran out of steam and/or interest to keep the motif going.

I don't like the way Barnaby and Troy play fast and loose with proper police procedure and civil rights as a means to drive the plot forward.

Just got BritBox and have been watching episodes every night. I love it.

In a season 7 episode, I noticed a photo of 2 children hugging each other in the Barnaby home. Did Cully have a sibling that passed away?

I liked the dishy Daniel Scott. He was supposed to be developed as a love interest to Cully, but it never panned out. The gay actor had a female love interest in one of the episodes and it was not convincing by a long shot.

r33, not that I remember.

Feel the same, R2, although I can't blame John Nettles for wanting to do something else.

Anybody else enjoy this?

Is it shameful to find Neil Dudgeon sexy?

I like Blood Wedding where that idiot Cully finally gets married. Troy makes a special guest appearance.

Yes R38. I posted this on another thread about Midsomer Murders, but early in the Neil Dudgeon episodes there is a scene that showed a close up of Neil and he had a huge red pimple with a white head on it in his ear, That, his acne scars and his face in general were sufficient to turn me off of old Neil.

R40, I don't dismiss men with acne scars. I sometimes find that they look attractive despite the scars. I have always found Bryan Adams very attractive even though his face is even more scarred than Dudgeon's.

Neil can't act either. I find him smirking his way through these to be a turnoff. Loved the show with Nettles, though. Is it true that they are remaking multiple episodes with Neil that were done years ago with Nettles? I could swear I saw one not that long ago. Like the writers have finally reached the bottom of the barrel.

Ugh you are so right R42. How many episodes of how many murder mysteries must we watch where someone is boiled in a vat of wine?? Or during a cricket match?

On a different Midsomer Murder thread someone suggested the Brit show Kingdom, starring Stephen Fry, and one episode of season / series three features Neil Dudgeon as obsessive syfy nerd who completely ignores his son. I swear Neil shows more emotion in that one 45 minutes episode than in the entire run of Midsomer Murders (including the early guest stint as different character in some early episode as some mysterious gardener).

R44, none of the actors need to show much emotion on shows like Midsomer Murders. These shows are comfortable gigs for the actors. All they need to do is show, go to costume, hair and makeup, memorize a few generic lines and deliver a low-key performance for the camera.

The hours are probably not that long either.