Midsomer Murders: Bantling Boy starts as DCI Tom Barnaby (John Nettles) his wife Joyce (Jane Wymark) & daughter Cully (Laura Howard) take time out to spend a day at the Causton Race Course where the runners & riders are preparing to battle it out in the Gold Cup. The horses take their stalls & the race is run, locally born & trained horse Bantling Boy beats the favourite to win the Cup. Owned by a Midsomer village syndicate of Bruce Hartley (Simon Kunz), the wheelchair bound Trevor Machin (Richard O'Callaghan), local nurse Joanna Craxton (Julia Ford) & local doctor Osgood (Barnaby Kay) a wealthy businessman named Sam Tate (Geoffrey Freshwater) offers them £500,000 to sell Bantling Boy, the syndicate is split down the middle & unless all are in agreement Bantling Boy cannot be sold. Then that night Bruce who was opposed to the sale is found dead with his head bashed in, Barnaby & Sgt. Dan Scott (John Hopkins) are on the case. Was it a simple matter of money or was the reason behind the murder more sinister...
Episode 4 from season 8 this Midsomer Murders story was directed by Sarah Hellings & I have to admit I rather liked Bantling Boy a fair amount. The script by Steve Trafford has a intriguing central premise of a syndicate who each own a stake in a horse being killed off one-by-one in a murder mystery with plenty of twists & turns which are certainly improbable sure but Midsomer Murders has never really gone for realism has it? I'm willing to bet no-one is going to guess the twist ending here, I like the Midsomer Murders episodes where the eventual motives behind the killings are over-the-top & flamboyant & that's certainly the case here with Bantling Boy. As far as I'm concerned the odder, the stranger, surprising & more bizarre the motive the better! There are some good red-herrings to keep you guessing & the finger of suspicion falls on several character's who could have done it & have a motive so I really do think this one will leave most of you guessing until the end. Barnaby's daughter Cully has a larger than normal in this, there's a steady stream of murders & a well thought out if far fetched plot to become absorbed in. As usual the dialogue is exposition heavy & if you don't pay attention or miss any of it than the ending won't work as well as it should & you'll probably get left behind. There's even a nice deadpan line at the end when Barnaby has a dig at people for considering murder as entertainment!
The production values are of the highest order as usual & certainly better than most stuff made for British TV at the moment, Dorney Court in Dorney in Berkshire was used as Bantling Hall & also appeared in Strangler's Wood (1999) as 'The Fox & Goose Hotel', Gommes Forge & the surrounding cottages in Loosley Row in Buckinghamshire was used as a location while the Causton Race Course was in reality Windsor Race Course in Berkshire. The makers even managed to include a local fund raising medieval jousting reenactment complete with period costumes & the music is great as always. There are four murders in Bantling Boy, while none are particularly graphic there's a bit of blood, the murders take place at night & they are staged in a nice spooky sort of way. The acting is top notch & everyone gives a good performance including a creepy little kid.
Bantling Boy is one of those Midsomer Murders mysteries that I am fond of, the sort where's plenty of dead bodies & a crazy out-of-nowhere motive behind them that you'd never guess. Surely Bantling Boy is one of the better episodes from the eighth season?
Episode 4 from season 8 this Midsomer Murders story was directed by Sarah Hellings & I have to admit I rather liked Bantling Boy a fair amount. The script by Steve Trafford has a intriguing central premise of a syndicate who each own a stake in a horse being killed off one-by-one in a murder mystery with plenty of twists & turns which are certainly improbable sure but Midsomer Murders has never really gone for realism has it? I'm willing to bet no-one is going to guess the twist ending here, I like the Midsomer Murders episodes where the eventual motives behind the killings are over-the-top & flamboyant & that's certainly the case here with Bantling Boy. As far as I'm concerned the odder, the stranger, surprising & more bizarre the motive the better! There are some good red-herrings to keep you guessing & the finger of suspicion falls on several character's who could have done it & have a motive so I really do think this one will leave most of you guessing until the end. Barnaby's daughter Cully has a larger than normal in this, there's a steady stream of murders & a well thought out if far fetched plot to become absorbed in. As usual the dialogue is exposition heavy & if you don't pay attention or miss any of it than the ending won't work as well as it should & you'll probably get left behind. There's even a nice deadpan line at the end when Barnaby has a dig at people for considering murder as entertainment!
The production values are of the highest order as usual & certainly better than most stuff made for British TV at the moment, Dorney Court in Dorney in Berkshire was used as Bantling Hall & also appeared in Strangler's Wood (1999) as 'The Fox & Goose Hotel', Gommes Forge & the surrounding cottages in Loosley Row in Buckinghamshire was used as a location while the Causton Race Course was in reality Windsor Race Course in Berkshire. The makers even managed to include a local fund raising medieval jousting reenactment complete with period costumes & the music is great as always. There are four murders in Bantling Boy, while none are particularly graphic there's a bit of blood, the murders take place at night & they are staged in a nice spooky sort of way. The acting is top notch & everyone gives a good performance including a creepy little kid.
Bantling Boy is one of those Midsomer Murders mysteries that I am fond of, the sort where's plenty of dead bodies & a crazy out-of-nowhere motive behind them that you'd never guess. Surely Bantling Boy is one of the better episodes from the eighth season?