DVD Review: Midsomer Murders - Set Ten
Published March 15, 2008
Story-wise it goes in this order:
- "Second Sight"
- "Hidden Depths"
- "Sauce For The Goose"
- "Midsomser Rhapsody"
It's exactly like the order of the set itself — weird.
Since I'm a fan of science fiction, I find myself very attracted to the "Second Sight" episode. The story mostly deals with a murder of a man who could possibly have a secret power to see into the future. One of the suspects manages to clown Barnaby by use of this power as he sounds off on each card Barnaby draws from a deck. After the suspect hits the right mark with every card, he clowns Barnaby further by noting the mirror showing his reflection behind him.
"Hidden Depths" deals with a suicide that turns out to be a murder. From there it becomes a story about a con job involving wine and a plot to kill the people involved in the scheme. The rather large plot of this story was a bit much for me. It's already a headache trying to figure out one mystery, but two mysteries in one show can wear down a viewer's patience. Still, it's a good episode despite the over-reaching.
"Sauce For The Goose" is another good story involving a man murdered at a relish factory. The story has a nice little connecting sideplot involving an elderly woman who sees things, but it ultimately gets cut off by the murder mystery. It would have made more sense to make that a story of its own, rather than mesh it into this one.
"Midsomer Rhapsody" involves the murder of man over a piece of composition from a famous work of the same name. This one is also overplotted a bit. I'd avoid it. As John Hopkins didn't film a goodbye episode with MM, this episode is kind of a waste anyway.
Set Ten has a bit more quality to offer than Set Nine. There are still no extras, aside from the usual textual bio info on the actors and actresses for each of the episodes. It's too bad that Acorn Media chose to repackage the Troy years into another collection (to be released on March 25) with special features that should have been included in the individual box sets MM fans already have.
To their credit, I can understand the trouble with making special features work. Gathering actors, the contracts, finding the time to schedule everyone in for filming, can be a rather difficult task. It's only fitting that for all that to go to DVD, it would have to be repackaged to make it a more attractive purchase for the fans. Still, if you just care about the episodes and not extras or audio commentary, these Midsomer Murders box sets are perfect. Otherwise, you might want to wait for the upcoming release of Midsomer Murders: The Early Cases Collection.
- DVD Review: Midsomer Murders - Set Ten
- Published: March 15, 2008
- Type: Review
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: Crime, Video: Suspense and Mystery, Video: Television
- Writer: Matthew Milam
- Matthew Milam's BC Writer page
- Matthew Milam's personal site
- Spread the Word
- Like this article?
- Email this
Save to del.icio.us





