A dead man is found in a crop circle, and thus begins "The Electric Vendetta" from season 4 of Midsomer Murders. The man had received some sort of electric shock. One man, Lloyd Kirby, who has an interest in extraterrestrials, puts this down to an alien visit. Barnaby isn't so sure.
Then another one is found, a local burglar, as was the first one. He was also found in the crop circle, also electrocuted and his body moved, again like the first one.
Then there's a third death by electrocution, and he's found in his car. It's going to take Barnaby a while to work this one out. To do that, he has to go quite a way back in time.
Well, as I've said before, you can't do a show for 15 years or so and have them all be winners. But if I didn't know about some later excellent episodes, I would have said that this script showing up in the season 4 was a bad sign. It is all over the place.
First of all, there were too many subplots. There is a reason for that, which I can't explain without giving it away. I'll say this - just as there were too many murders (it doesn't end with three), there were too many subplots. You've got an unhappily newlywed couple, a woman sleeping with every guy in town, crop circles, a dying woman, thieves, and at the beginning of the movie, there's a duel between two young men. You don't find out what that's about until the end.
So I throw up my hands at this one. I think extraterrestrials were involved in the story -- writing the script.
