Midsomer Murders - The Scarecrow Murders

 

A sombre episode seems out of place.

 Shown for the first time directly after a frothy documentary looking at the show’s twenty fifth anniversary, `The Scarecrow Murders` is an atypical episode and a little tame. Back in the day a title like that would probably involve a killer dressing up as a scarecrow and some suitably scary sequences. The name is something of a red herring even though events take place during a scarecrow festival. While the victims are left amongst the displays with a bit of straw adorning them the episode is actually about more serious issues. Curiously the location is simply referred to as Midsomer despite the documentary making a point that it’s a fictional county rather than a village. Perhaps they’ve run out of names.

 

Spoiler- The episode isn't as great as this picture makes it seem!

Helen Jenkins’ storyline involves the murder of Naomi Ashworth, one of lottery winning Vicar Oscar Hayden's daughter. Her twin sister Bryony seemingly never leaves the house and is played by the same actor Emily Bevan. Amongst the suspects are the previous vicar, a couple whose marriage is not as happy as it seems and a homeless man. It’s a story told without much humour and a lot of exposition. Having just watched `Happy Families` the day before and seen how it benefited from flashbacks and a melodramatic style, this episode seems rather workaday with long expositional scenes. Even the visual potential is rather wasted. There is one moment when a scarecrow lifts its head and it is creepy but this is what the whole episode should be like. The problem really is that the victims are made into scarecrows rather than the killer being disguised as one so it’s nowhere near as frightening as it could be. Even given that the bodies don’t realty look like scarecrows in any case, there’s just a bit of straw tucked in their neck. Still the cast make the script a bit more interesting than it is and the clues are so scattered that it’s not easy to spot the killer. There are motives aplenty but then a bit later an alibi or explanation rules them out.

The most interesting aspect of the story is that it turns out not to be about the travails of village life at all but gambling addiction. Furthermore, there are three murderers which I don’t think has been done in the series before (forgive me if I’m wrong, there are 130 episodes!). The sixpence turn of the reveal is impressive and the subsequent confessions well played (finally, flashback!) and despite the somewhat unfeasible level of coincidence highlight an actual real life issue. Ordinary people driven to such drastic action due to the terrible results of addiction is an  important and interesting  topic but perhaps not for this programme. Its really too serious an issue to bring up at such a late stage in proceedings and the nature of the show is that there is no context to have a debate about the implications.

Oddly enough it is the B story that is more engaging as Winter encounters an old University girlfriend Caitlin Dawson, now a rather enterprising reporter. I’ve no idea how old Winter is supposed to be but I’m guessing about thirty so its from some time ago. Their awkward reunion and subsequent conversations are well played. I found out afterwards the actor Jessica Ellerby and Nick Hendrix are married in real life. The character fades a bit later on, more could have been done or maybe she could be a recurring character?

On one watch I struggled to reconcile all the strands, especially why the vicar lived in a massive mansion and why Bryony pretended never to go out. Simon Shephard is good as Oscar but the character’s motivation seems all over the place. Promising sparks such as her belief that homeless Jack was her son or the control freak psychologist never really catch fire. I also felt sorry for Jason Wong whose character was so underwritten yet fairly pivotal you could see him struggling to know how to play it. I think there were a few too many characters crowding the narrative. As for fearless Fleur finding scarecrows disturbing that was the most unlikely revelation of them all!

Given what was on the page director Christine Lalla managed to imbue some atmosphere though there was a lot  more that could have been made. Whatever the content an episode called `The Scarecrow Murders` should be more scarier than this.