User Reviews

I will admit that I guessed the murderer early on, but it was a fun ride watching them get there. Why do people constantly slam a show for being what it is...a bit of fun. Any show that can hold interest, especially when you know who it is, is doing its job..to entertain.

Just like in Cabot Cove we are supposed to believe that this bucolic county has all these murders. How can you accept that premise that it's silly and condemn the writing for being the same?

The chemistry Neil Dudgen,Fiona Dolman, Nick Hendrix and Annette Badland have is terrific. Every relationship is believable.

The underlying lie is believable. Fraud for cures of diseases is a very real thing. It was a bit of fun getting to it.

I never thought that "Midsomer murders" and "The Wicker man" (movie with Nicholas Cage from 2006, not the 1973 one) can have something in common. Well, they can! SPOILERS throughout this review I am afraid, because there are things that I need to get of my mind. Sorry, if you haven't seen the episode.

"The Sting of death" starts of interesting enough with nice direction by Matt Carter and beautiful music in the background. Right off we get the "Midsomer murders" standard subplots with blackmail and affairs, which was fine for me, because they where done with confidence. Soon enough Ambrose Deddington- a man who has come home after a date with a local doctor- witnesses someone destroying his beehives. Ambrose goes after the attacker, but gets hit over the head himself.

And from that moment on "The Sting of death" became one of my least favorite "Midsomer murders" of all time. I know, it's my opinion, but hear me out . You can have fun with this episode , because this is the most hilariously bad "Midsomer murders" since "Death on the saddle".

There are few good things about this episode, so let's start with those.

. As told, the production values of this episode are great. The direction by Matt Carter is smooth,enjoyable. Music's also fantastic.

. Some moments of this episode are genuinely charming (Especially liked the subplot about yoga).

. The first ten minutes of "The Sting of death" where fairly promising and Cal Ingall's, Dr Lowe's deaths felt well executed.

. Red herrings of this story were mostly well written.

There is so much more to say on the bad stuff, though. Prepare yourself:)

. The story of "The Sting of death" is one of the dumbest I have seen in a LONG time with its vulgar tones and needless sex, violence. Also, listen to something that actually happens in this episode: Poisonous bees are spread out in the village, because of a bad guy (Noah Moon) continuous to attack these beehives. The villagers made an app for passing those bees. Trust me, it does get better than that. :)

. The characters here are so over the top, unlikeable human beings whose actions get more ridiculous as the story goes along.

. The performances are hamy and laughable. Only few people I thought had nice characters to play: Aaron Anthony and Nina White. All the other actors felt like they were having too much fun with this script.

.If the first one hour was laughable, kind of boring-actually, then the last 20 minutes make up for the entire episode. There are so many laugh out loud scenes that happen in these last minutes that I was rolling in tears. A priest going mad, a woman trying burn others face... yeah, I mean, it happens.

. The solution feels way too silly( like it isn't "Midsomer murders", but a superhero movie) with its over the top nature and a cartoonish murderer, whose motives we have heard over thousand times before.

To conclude this review, I would have to say: This is the worst episode I have seen from a writer Julia Gilbert. Even though "The Curse of the Ninth" wasn't good at all, it is much better than this. If she decides to do another "Midsomer murders" episode, which I look forward to (without the sarcasm) then : "Not like the bees story , not like the bees story!" anymore.

I guess it's a much earned 2/10

HK

Ok..look, this, to me was not the best episodes of MM. Not the worst, I give that to "Blood on the Saddle" and, to me the WORST one, "Night of the Stag" (when that comes on, I turn the channel).

Basically, in a nutshell, you have a village called Granville Norton (which seems to me since John Barnaby came to Midsomer, there seems to be more villages I have not heard from since all 14 or so seasons with Tom Barnaby and Troy/Scott/Jones years). In this village, you have a man named Ambrose Deddington, a man who is in love with himself and the bees he keeps. It's a wonder he is even having a relationship with a beautiful, younger doctor, living with his way too close sister, Tamara.

His bees are said to produced honey that "cured" his "cancer", thus having a waiting list of people waiting their "cure." Got it? Good.

Someone tries to destroy the hives. Why?

Well, because as we find out, someone doesn't bee-lieve his claims. So, bashed over the head and a destroyed hive.

Then, in said village, you have a Vicar who is (can you guess?) A fire and brimstone type that apparently EVERYONE who is not of the righteousness is going to hell (he would have loved the company of the Vicar in "Second Sight" and other wonderful "you're burning in hell" types). Well, he is on love with the doctor who is going with Ambrose and, he has some sort of bi polar and anger management issues. No wonder no one wants to worship with him (he's unhinged). But wait, there's more! He has a daughter who has come back from sabbatical (does he greet her? Only to scold her!) to be around this bee loving village to work with a pent up sister of said Ambrose who has the hots for Noah Moon, a yoga instructing, peace loving guy whom is not all what he seems. Why? Because he has come back for revenge! Ambrose "honey of the Gods to cure cancer" didn't help his mother who bee-lieved in that (see what I did there with bees..) anyway. He has to go but...he DOESN'T KILL HIM. Why the hell not? Because genuis here kills the doctor that he loved, the mam he loved but, somehow, found out he helped in some with the lie about the curable cancer honey. I was disappointed in this episode! I left a lot out (read the other reviews) but, I gave it a low score because there were people who SHOULD have died.

Ambrose, his awful sister (who was trying to burn alive the Vicar's daughter because she thought she had the hots for Moon boy...) and what's worse, SHE is not even arrested! What the actual hell? And the Vicar, too...he almost committed murder (he "saw" the devil in Noah Moon) but, he was stopped by his daughter (who was almost effing burned, btw) and Winter and Barnaby lite didn't arrest him??

The SAME Barnaby that sent an old lady to be brought to the station from an episode about Sarah's Uni bestie's son getting married and the old lady was helped by now dead bride to help slow the pain of her dying husband with some powerful weed! In that, he told Sarah, "Well, she's right I have to turn her in." But, in 2 cases in THIS damn episode, he doesn't!! Let this be Tom Barnaby, he would have let that slide (go the episodes "Death in Disguise" and "The Made for Measure Murders" about that).

What I liked about this episode: beautiful homes, settings, Fleur. Jaime is fine. I agree about John and Sarah not being seen to have chemistry like Tom and Joyce (and I do not care what a couple of people on here think in their reviews but Tom and Joyce are a great couple and you can tell that by their chemistry and their banter together). I mean, they have grown from the beginning of, what, the 14th season when we get to meet Sarah, BUT, still. They are a little stiff with each other. But I digress.

Still a better episode than "Blood on the Saddle" and "Night of the Stag"!

Ugh. I haven't seen quite all the Midsomer Murders episodes, but I've seen most, and this one is a definite low point. One of the worst scripts filmed for the show.

It feels like the writer(s) thought "OK, what quirky suburban hobby haven't we done yet in Midsomer? I know - bees!" and then just tossed off a script without bothering to come up with an even halfway-decent story idea. The subject of beekeeping certainly could be an interesting one to feature in a mystery, but not the way it's handled here. Right away, we meet the character of Ambrose Deddington, whose prized hives have been vandalized. Deddington is an annoying idiot who anthropomorphizes his insects to a ludicrous degree. Actor Griff Rhys Jones' performance does nothing to make him even the least bit sympathetic - in fact, he was such an a-hole that I was rooting with all my heart for him to be the first to be bumped off (no such luck, alas). But then, really, none of the characters here are written in such a way as to make the viewer care about any of them.

Bizarrely, a number of the guest actors seem to have decided that the best way to handle a weak script was to overact - thus in addition to Rhys Jones' poor showing, we get bad performances from Imogen Stubbs (whom I usually like) as Ambrose's take-charge sister; Jacquetta May as a crazy relative who at one point spouts some nonsense about hornets in which Barnaby is able to see a (weak) parallel to the case; Ben Starr as a romantically devious yoga teacher; and especially Derek Griffiths, who gives an abysmally cliché and truly awful reading of a brimstone-and-hellfire inclined vicar (the character appears to be bipolar, although I don't recall that we are ever actually given a reason for his extreme mood swings). A few of the other players - Jack Fox, Aaron Anthony and Wendi Peters - do manage to come off well, despite their characters not being very fleshed out in the writing, while the remainder barely make an impression.

The plot is yet another variation on "Person Assumes A Fake Identity And Comes To A Midsomer Village To Avenge Something That Happened Years Before", a storyline that MM has mined a fair number of times over the years. The murder methods are not all that surprising - if one were to guess that the bees will be involved somehow, one would not be wrong. The second murder provides the most arresting visual image, but it's given the laziest and most perfunctory motivation I have ever seen on the show: we are simply told, at the very end by the killer, that the victim was discovered to have been involved in the plot that was being avenged, and thus had to go. The writers do not even bother to have the killer explain exactly how the victim was involved, or how the killer found out about it! Because, I guess, such details aren't that important? (The denouement confession scene, BTW, has the most hilarious bit of OTT acting in the episode, courtesy of the person playing the murderer - you've never seen anything quite like it on Midsomer.)

As for other aspects of the story, the Barnabys-Take-A-Yoga-Class subplot seems to have been concocted to add some levity, but it's never that funny. Annette Badland's coroner Fleur, who really got to shine in the previous episode, is hardly in this one; Nick Hendrix's DI Winter does get more screen time, but isn't given anything particularly interesting to do.

All in all, "The Sting Of Death" is pretty dreadful. As I said, a low point in the series.

Beautifully shot and exciting opening scene that includes the comfort of the Barnaby home with its lovely backyard, Betty, and Paddy. Gorgeous gardens, building exteriors and interiors, and the bee theme made for a nice atmosphere, but too many swarming bees gave me the hebbie jeebies. Always love the shots of the church and its graveyard. And you usually can't go wrong with a family fued between the posh and black sheep members. The pretty visuals distracted me from a distinct lack of murder for the first 20 minutes. It got very slow and boring mid episode, especially the bit about the flirty yoga instructor. The kind of episode in which the characters are too cartoonish without BEEing interesting. The murders were unique, death by bee. But by the end, the scenery was all it had to keep my attention. If the actors had been less... obnoxious in style and read their lines...better, it might have been more than just hum drum.

I have waited a long time for the ITV schedulers to put this on real TV instead of trying to make extra money from Midsomer fans but putting it out on their subscrioption channel. I'm really glad I didn't pay extra for this! Fleur's couple of 'funny' quips to Barnaby & Nelson were excrutiating. Bee-related of course. Buzz off Fleur! Midsomer does not have a good record when portraying gay characters. Here yet another one meets a sticky end (killed then covered with melted beeswax candle) and another (bisexual? Or just going for it to get info?) turns out to be the killer. Echoes of The Lions Of Causton, Dance With The Dead (gay murderers). The gay ghostwriter was scalded to death in beer (Ghost of Caustion Abbey). The lesbian vet had one of the worst deaths on the show - just for being a lesbian (Echoes of the Dead). On top of that the final (attempted) murder was signalled right at the start with the 'this was going to be my final resting place preserved in honey' speech - and it so nearly was. Shades of Death & the Divas there. And as soon as we were told 'he appeared to have cancer but was cured by his honey' you could see it was a scam to build up the business. It worked too. It was like all sorts of old, tired-out ideas were poured into this script. Next week we have the final delayed show - this time involving fish. Let's hope it's worth waiting for - cos this one wasn't. Recommendations: time for Fleur to retire, Barnaby needs a gay sidekick in a stable relationship or a BAME one or a female one (time for a shake up). Or Barnaby needs to be replaced by any or all of those. Time for a BIG REFRESH in Midsomer....