User Reviews

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?

There is gruesome twist upon gruesome twist in Bantling Boy, and it happens in the last 20 or so minutes. It involves sexual assault, illegitimate children, violent computer games, attempted murder of a boy, and that's before the killer(s) are unveiled. Be prepared, as the last 20 minutes are dark.

Julia Ford deserves special commendation - she's a beautiful and elegant actress and I wish she was in more Midsomer episodes.

There's one line at the end that is open to much somber interpretation. It's the line from Barnaby "When killing becomes entertainment we all seem to lose touch with reality" in response to Scott wondering how a person can turn murder into a game. I thought this was a sly line from the writers about the Midsomer body count as this episode alone there four murders, and let's be honest, people love Midsomer for the title and the amazing and gleeful methods by which people are bumped off, almost bordering on the entertaining. In fact, some reviewers recoil when the body count is low! I guess that's one interpretation.

It's the world of horse racing this time for Barnaby and Scott as they look into the murder of a horse trainer, Bruce Hartley.

One of the horses he was training, Bantling Boy, is owned by a syndicate. They've had a lucrative offer to sell, and a fight ensues as some want to sell him and some do not.

Sadly the murders continue. It falls to Barnaby to figure out how the syndicate obtained ownership in the first place, and if all the members die, who takes over ownership.

As is usual with Midsomer Murders, there's a family secret that needs to be uncovered before the murderer can be revealed.

Very good Midsomer, somewhat violent, with a solid denouement.

Barnaby makes an excellent point as well when he says, "When killing becomes entertainment we all seem to lose touch with reality." It's an interesting statement that has some truth to it. As kids we watched cowboys like crazy, but they are a little different from the violent video games played today, and played in isolation with anonymous people on the Internet.

It's true that we watch things that contain killing, but not because they do: we like the characters, the mystery, the drama. The object is not to destroy.

Thought provoking anyway, about something to which there is no easy answer.

Forget all that and enjoy the episode.

After "Orchis Fatalis" being pretty good "Midsomer murders" episode, I was very pumped to see what follows next. "Bantling Boy" did not disappoint at all. To be frank, it's one of the shows bests and easily the eighth season's second best episode.

Let's start with great and good (the positives)!

. The production values are usually wonderful in this entry with fitting music and compelling direction by Sarah Hellings. The cast is very strong too with great performances from Simon Kunz (as Bruce Hartley, who just begs to be killed off),Julia Ford and others. Thomas Grant is suitably creepy as Peter, who loves violent games. Even though the graphics of the games depicted are not comparable to the stuff we have today :)

. The story of "Bantling Boy" is a great mixture of welcome humor, interesting characters, well done twists, turns, red herrings and dark themes. The solution is agreed pretty surprising and effective as well.

I only have one to two issues with this episode.

. The tone of "Bantling Boy" is a bit flippant during the last 20-30 minutes, where the story gets dark. Which isn't a bad thing, but I found the tone shifting a little too drastic. Also the lines, in which Barnaby comments video games and life, have truth in them, but they felt sly in terms of the matter in hand.

Overall, one of my favorites and an awesome "Midsomer Murders".

9/10 HK

Barnaby lets more than the usual characters die before finally figuring it out. As usual, lots of fun lines and dialog, but with even a higher body count than usual, and ridiculous solution, it is a highly unbelievable episode.

One of the better recent MM. They're really starting to use as many sports now as themes. Very good flow to the plot. As usual little boring and plodding first 1/4 to set things up. A superior officer above Barnaby is mentioned for the first time since I can remember. Cully wears a heavy winter coat when it doesn't appear that cold outside and no one else is. Joanna is old man Colonel Hartley's nurse in his last dieing days. As old and deathly sick as he was his mind is on sex? And has the ability to rape Joanna when he's near death?

Scott brings up in recent episodes Barnaby's law breaking to pin down a suspect but Scott's no angel stealing computer files.

Overall a terrific episode with a highly likely ending they neatly steer viewers away with red herrings. Vito S 10-6-19

What I assumed would be a straightforward story about corruption in horse racing turned out to be a more complex story. As usual, the acting was above par, but it was the story that was really intriguing. On some level it is a cautionary tale of what happens when young children become immersed in the violent fantasies of video games. As in a previous episode, the viewer is shocked to find out the perpetrator of 4 gruesome murders ( or at least the brains behind it) was a child. Though I enjoy this show immensely, I frequently find that loose ends are not always tied up at the end. In this episode, the question of who ultimately owns Bantling Boy goes unanswered ( unless I missed something).