User Reviews

Midsomer Murders: The Animal Within is set in the village of Midsomer Deverell where a woman named faith Alexander (Lisa Eichhorn) has just arrived in after flying out from Philadelphia to visit her Uncle Rex Masters (Richard Johnson) who lives there & whom she hasn't seen for forty years. First Faith meets the gardener Miles King (David Troughton) who is very surprised to see faith since Rex has told everyone that she died in a plane crash, he calls several other interested parties who all have their own agenda & are equally surprised. Wanting to confront Rex no-one can find him, DCI Tom Barnaby (John Nettles) & DS Ben Jones (Jason Hughes) become involved when Rex's dead body is found in a nearby river with suspicious head wounds. Barnaby has to unravel a mystery spanning back decades, lies & petty squabbling over Rex's will to get to the truth & catch a killer...

Episode 2 from season 10 this Midsomer Murders mystery was directed by Renny Rye & for my money is one of the more enjoyable episodes from the more recent seasons which have generally been not much better than average. I suppose the main reason I liked The Animal Within so much is the way in which the story unfolds & that there are plenty of twist's & turns that aren't necessarily part of the murder but are still relevant. I liked the fact that we never saw Rex before his body was found so we never really knew him & he was a total mystery, his odd behaviour was a mystery especially him telling everyone Faith was dead when she wasn't. Then there are the photo's, the murder itself, the wills that keep turning up & as usual for Midsomer Murders some dark event in the distant past which proves to be a motive for murder in the present. The actual motives aren't the best, I am not sure I buy the fact that someone would brutally murder three people just to keep someone's reputation intact let alone someone who isn't even alive anymore, there really isn't any other motive here at all. It's not for love or money or jealously or revenge & as such the final reveal is a little weak & somewhat underwhelming considering the rest of the episode was so strong. I just felt after such a good build-up the final unmasking of the killer was a little disappointing & like not much thought had gone into it. Having said that the episode still works well, the story is engaging with lots going on & plenty of red herrings, suspects & mysteries for all you armchair detectives to try & work out. At almost two hours & lots of exposition as usual you will need to pay attention & actually make sure you watch it all but like all the best Midsomer Murders episodes if you put the effort in you will be rewarded with a top murder mystery, simple as that.

The production values are great as usual, this has to be one of the best looking show's we British make, there's plenty of English countryside, quaint cottages & stately homes to admire. There are three murders in this one although all happen off-screen & there's nothing graphic here. The acting is pretty good but I wasn't keen on the two American accents.

Midsomer Murders: The Animal Within in my opinion as a long standing fan of the series is one of the better episodes from recent seasons because there's quite a lot going on & the way it plays out is different than usual without being too different if you know what I mean.

An intriguing episode which featured two American characters. The lead one is Faith Alexander, played by Lisa Eichhorn (who is an acclaimed US actress) who arrives in Midsomer from the USA searching for her Uncle Rex Masters who was a bit of a lovable rogue who was asset rich but cash poor.

Uncle Rex's financial dilemma lead to a range of wills being signed with different chief beneficiaries, which was revealed in the office of solicitor Jane Benbow played by Helen Masters. I must say, Helen Masters is a lovely actress and really the Midsomer producers should have created a spin-off series centered around Jane Benbow (played by the beautiful and elegant Helen Masters of course).

The Animal Within featured David Troughton who was excellent as one of the doctors in in A Very Peculiar Practice, set in a university medical clinic.

William Hope played Alan Alexander, the American husband of Faith. Interestingly, William was born in Canada (according to his IMDb page) but has done a lot of work in the UK. This probably explains his sort of convincing American accent. I was hoping he would say "aboot".

The Animal Within was a bit "saucy" towards the end, especially with the photos revealed. I remember reading that Barry Jackson, who played Dr Bullard, was a bit concerned Midsomer Murders was moving towards the saucy end, and I would say this episode was Exhibit A.

There was no Cully in this episode, and she ends up getting married in the following season. Cully actually appeared in almost every episode of the first 10 seasons, but afterwards her appearances in Midsomer were a bit sporadic.

The ending was charming, with Faith and new chief beneficiary Janet Bailey riding off into the sunset together.

An American woman shows up in England to meet her uncle who (supposedly) no one in her family has seen or heard from in 40 years. He is not there and ends up being found murdered after much searching. The uncle had told all his friends/employees/acquaintances that she and her family had died in a plane crash a year ago. Hmmmmmmm. What follows is quite interesting and not as far fetched as some of the previous Midsomer Murders have been (at least in the last season or so).

Of course a few more murders occur and the eventual killer is a surprise. The story winds up fairly coherently as opposed to the last season or so of episodes (not all of them, of course!), in my opinion.

As an aside, one of the previous reviewers was a bit upset at how bad the American accents were. Well, as it turns out, Lisa Eichhorn has an American 'accent' because she was born and grew up in Glens Falls, New York which I believe is in America. The actor who portrayed her husband is from Canada so I cannot say anything about his 'accent.'

"Midsomer Murders" has been one of my favorite shows for quite some time, but the tenth season of it has never been a great one in my eyes. I find it inconsistent for the most part. "The Animal Within" is however one of the best, if not the best, episode of the 10th season. It's not great, but is still pretty good.

Let's start with the good aspects, shall we?

. The production values are great as usual. The direction's gorgeous and the music fits the scenery. The acting's solid for the most part. Richard Johnson is very good as Rex Masters, even though he has little screen time. Linda Bassett, Helen Masters and Emily Woof are enjoyable too. David Troughton's very captivating as well. Out of the guest stars, only Lisa Eichhorn feels stiff in certain parts.

. The mystery is very intriguing. It has great character-work, well-written dialogue, some good twists and turns. The sombre feeling of the story is well captured too.

But...

. I agree with one of the previous reviewers, who said the solution was underwhelming. The identity of the killer( Jeremy Thacker) and his motives for the murders are not that surprising to be honest. I thought there were some too obvious clues given early on.

. The murder of Eileen Carnack doesn't, agreed, propel the story along at all. There wasn't that good of a motive behind it as well.

Overall, a pretty good one, if not amazing.

8/10 HK.

I really enjoy Midsomer Murders, despite the long list of things that annoy me in each episode (usually the same things, some examples: they don't wear gloves at crime scenes and why in the world Joyce takes so much crap). I was pleasantly surprised this time around that they seemed to have wrapped up the ending very nicely. Usually there are so many loose ends. Not so much about the mystery itself, but what happens to the other characters in the village.

I wonder if they got a new writing team or new director? (I won't look it up, got to get off the computer now!).

Side Note: Found the American characters weird and wooden.

Love the show but this episode had two issues. The Missionary is purported to be 17 when "attacked" and is shown as a fairly old woman, 70ish, in a flashback. But Miles King is supposedly at the orgy and in the show appears to be no more than 50. He wouldn't have even been born yet.

Also, the American accents, especially Faiths husband, are ridiculous. Seems to happen a lot in this series. Maybe they're exaggerating them so people get that they're American. I think there was a rather odd Canadian accent once too... oh well, no biggie.

There were episodes during first 9 seasons which had bad moments and weak plot but this one gets the crown. Not to mention some actors, alright one actress, the american character being on C level of bad.

And the ending. The ending. Probably the most trash human being of all gets the to be depicted in so much positive way that it looked totally unreal and cult following. I didn't check who wrote this episode but I'll be following if writer occrs asgain just to check does it have problems with moral compass in future episodes. Or retroactivelly in past.

After almost 2 years of no MM on American TV, I was excited to get my first episode (The Animal Within) thru Netflix. I was somewhat troubled, however, by the implication that humanitarian contributions of the killer's mother as a missionary were basically negated by revelations of her youthful indiscretions which were induced and exploited by the despicable Rex. People can and do change for the better, unlike unrepentant characters such as Rex and Miles. (I know from my older siblings that the father I knew was not the same father they knew because he did a 180 when I was born and was a changed person.) I can certainly understand the reaction of the son upon learning of his mother's sordid past as gleefully told to him by the manipulative Rex who obviously reveled in destroying the mother's earned reputation, not to mention the son's overly-pure image of his mother. The son's violent reaction unfortunately resulted in death and cover-up, although I never felt sorry for the demise of the perverted Rex. The subsequent murders seemed to be rather gratuitous, but then it wouldn't be MM without multiple murders!

I watched this episode as most of the series about three times. I love the storyline with all its quirky characters wanting a piece of inheritance they were promised. The performances given by Lisa Eichhorn and William Hope were the reason for the 3 stars. William's more than Lisa but both were not good actors in this episode. Lisa's performance cringed me, she wasn't believable as the long lost niece.