Murder Under the Mistletoe

OK, you've got your based-on-the-books TV series: it's running well, everyone's enjoying doing it. But there are only so many books, and you've all all these bit roles ... Wouldn't it be great to end the season with a holiday-themed episode that somehow included every semi-regular character?

And so we have this. Unfortunately, it has the hallmarks of the Straining-for-a-story murder mystery: move to an exotic location, cobble up a reason to isolate the cast (in this case, the weather), and then start killing people off, Ten Little Indians style. It's the kind of story that makes sense only to people who already have a steady diet of murder mysteries. The similarities to Agatha Christie's classic story go much farther than that, but why put spoilers? There's really nothing here except the gosh-wow of Magic Plot Developments, and nothing memorable for anyone to do.

Oh, I guess I can give you this: At the end, the killer confesses all. And you won't care -- about any of it. "Exhibit A" of hack murder-mystery writing.

To celebrate Christmas in July, Phryne, Dot, Mac, and Aunt Prudence travel to the Australian Alps for a vacation. They will be staying with family/friends in a mountain top villa. Another purpose for the trip is that Aunt Prudence intends to sell the family's interest in an abandoned gold mine and the trip will give her a chance to have the necessary paperwork signed. However, upon their arrival, they discover that one of the other guests has been killed. While everyone assumes it was a heart attack, Phryne is not so sure and suspects murder. Phryne is proved to be correct as one guest after another is murdered. Can Phryne get to the bottom of the murders before everyone is killed?

Murder Under the Mistletoe is Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries take on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. You know, a group of people is gathered together and one by one they're bumped off. What makes this episode memorable to me is the very creative murders used by the killer. They're all unique and "enjoyable". It's not every day that you see someone killed with a book, fishing line, and a statue. And, all the murders have the song The Twelve Days of Christmas as the unifying theme. The writing here is especially strong. Very nicely done. The backstory of the mine collapse and the minors who died as a result is a bit too intricate for a show that's less than 60 minutes in length, but the rest is just so much fun it was easy to look past this weakness. I suppose my biggest gripe is with some of the logic - and it's the same gripe I have with And Then There Were None. The killer has a very elaborate plan to murder everyone that requires a lot of set-up and a lot of moving about. How is it that no one notices anything? It's not logical.

I did learn a thing or two from Murder Under the Mistletoe. The biggest revelation for me is the existence of the Australian Alps. I don't know why, but I had no idea there was such a place. I'm not even sure I knew there was that much snow anywhere in Australia. You learn something new every day.