Midsomer Murders - My Favourite Episodes - Series Seven

Spoiler warning – there will be some spoilers here, so read on with caution if you have not seen all the episodes.

I appear to be in the minority among Midsomer Murder fans because I like Sergeant Dan Scott. I will admit that it took a little while to warm up to him as he was very different to Troy. We also see Barnaby warm towards Scott in this episode. 

My favourite episode of series seven is Ghosts of Christmas Past. There are three main reasons for this:

1. John Hopkins gets to flesh Dan Scott out more here. We see that he's not as two-dimensional as he initially seemed.

2. Bruce Alexander (known primarily for playing Superintendent Norman Mullet in A Touch of Frost) is as impressive as Dominic Jones. His subtle, genial and yet unnerving in places performance stands out in an episode where most of the characters are flat and annoying.

3. The other performer who stands out from the crown is Rory Corpus, who played Howard Frears. Howard is used to bearing the brunt of the blame when things go wrong, but he's not entirely beaten into submission. He's bright and angry, but he has a spark of determination to pursue his dreams, no matter how much others think they are ridiculous, which is admirable.

The story moves at a good pace and has good humour to balance the unpleasantness. My favourite funny bit is Tom Barnaby getting revenge on his father-in-law Douglas for winding up Joyce. 

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