The worst? No, I don't think so. I thought it was one of the funniest episodes, and I liked that. The series has gone from being "son of Agatha Christie mysteries" in the initial episodes based on the Graham books through, what seems to me, an attitude of "let's keep the franchise fresh for all involved." So, we get episodes involving the supernatural, sometimes rather chilling and sometimes rather humorous, episodes with what I'd call a happy ending, and some that end like life not so happily.
This episode, once the Wild West Theme was settled on, is a rather funny one. There are four murders, but the tone is light and fanciful. The guitar twangs tell us we're in the territory of "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly," the setting is out of "Annie, Get Your Gun," and Barnaby fails at every attempt to win the prize at the shooting gallery or dunking the witch. His wife Joyce wins both prizes, and when Ben Jones (Jason Hughes) show up, he becomes the object of humor with pratfalls n the mud and falling ash from a chimney. The jokes continue into the scenario: the killer checking Barnaby;s eyes and asking, like Olivier in The Marathon Man," "Is it safe?"; the horse carrying the dead cowboy into town, to the final shoot-out at the OK Corral, when the characters seen through the killer's demented gaze all become characters in a Hollywood western.
The episode was a lot of fun, not the best of "Midsomer Murders, but I don't think any of the many episodes in the 15 seasons I've watched plumb the depths. The score card is pretty high for me, and I don't consider this episode the worst. The funniest, maybe.,
This episode, once the Wild West Theme was settled on, is a rather funny one. There are four murders, but the tone is light and fanciful. The guitar twangs tell us we're in the territory of "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly," the setting is out of "Annie, Get Your Gun," and Barnaby fails at every attempt to win the prize at the shooting gallery or dunking the witch. His wife Joyce wins both prizes, and when Ben Jones (Jason Hughes) show up, he becomes the object of humor with pratfalls n the mud and falling ash from a chimney. The jokes continue into the scenario: the killer checking Barnaby;s eyes and asking, like Olivier in The Marathon Man," "Is it safe?"; the horse carrying the dead cowboy into town, to the final shoot-out at the OK Corral, when the characters seen through the killer's demented gaze all become characters in a Hollywood western.
The episode was a lot of fun, not the best of "Midsomer Murders, but I don't think any of the many episodes in the 15 seasons I've watched plumb the depths. The score card is pretty high for me, and I don't consider this episode the worst. The funniest, maybe.,