User Reviews

Midsomer Murders: A Worm in the Bud is set in the small village of Midsomer Worthy where several local farmers & residents are at war over the proposed selling of Setwale Woods near Abbey farm owned by James Harrington (Adam Kotz) who wants to sell the land to a property developer to fell & build houses on. Things take a very serious turn when the body of local farmers wife Susan Bartlett is found in the woods & a police investigation headed up by DCI Tom Barnaby (John Nettles) & Sgt. Troy (Daniel Casey) is started, was it murder or suicide? They learn of various affairs, money problems, jealously, dark family secrets, lies, sinister obsession's, ancient poisons & Jack Russell dogs all of which may or may not have a bearing on the case. Then James Harrington himself turns up murdered & the case gets even more complicated...

Episode 2 from season 5 this Midsomer Murders mystery was directed by David Tucker & is another very strong murder mystery during a golden period for this often great series. The opening twenty or thirty minutes of A Worm in the Bud are excellent with a very well crafted & written mystery that is developed up to a point that the episode then begins to drag a little & I have to say the middle third of A Worm in the Bud feels rather empty by comparison to it's excellent start & subsequent excellent finish. There's a body found quickly, there's all the ground work for the mystery & potential motives & suspects as well as sowing in plenty of red herrings & clues & I just felt this episode shot it's load a bit too soon & leaves itself with nowhere to go although that's a small quibble & maybe I'm just being a bit picky. The motives of the killer are a little flimsy but I did really like the ending to this one which is something a bit different to the usual explanations given by Barnaby although there's never any reason given as to why they only made Susan unconscious & went back later (several hours later in fact) & killed her which I did wonder about. So while there's a lull during the middle as two little kids play detective for a while this is a good solid episode that I enjoyed, the actual murders are a bit dull & neither are shown on screen (the bodies are merely found) but this is a still as well put together & intriguing as a lot of the early episodes from the early seasons.

I must admit I was very disappointed by the murders in this one, neither are shown on screen & are two of the dullest in the entire series although death by drowning in farm animal sh*t is quite an amusing concept. The photography is still very nice though as are the usual locations in & around Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire. The acting is good from a decent cast with British actress Wendy Craig probably the most recognisable face amongst them.

A Worm in the Bud is another highly recommended Midsomer Murders episode with an intriguing, absorbing, well thought out & satisfying plot that I am sure detective show fans everywhere will enjoy.

"Midsomer Murders" has been one of my most beloved shows for many years now, but I haven't had the time to review episodes when the show was at its best. But now I do. I am going to start with the 5.season, which is a consistently good series with "A worm in the bud" being a pretty good episode overall.

Let's start with positives first:

. The production values are wonderful as always with nice direction by David Tucker and amazing music by Jim Parker in the background.

. Most of the script is well written as "A worm in the bud" has a lot of colorful characters, compelling subplots and very tense solution that I didn't see coming.

. The acting is also very strong. Gillian Barge, Wendy Craig do particularly well with their roles. Of course, I love John Nettles as Tom Barnaby, who brought so much warmness to his character. Let alone Barry Jackson or Daniel Casey who are just as good.

. There is also some lovely humor there and then, which is always charming :)

But....

. In the latter middle the pacing of this episode does suffer from a children detective subplot which doesn't bring much as it could had. Also agree that most of "A worm in the bud"s clues are fired of bit too quickly from the writer, which left me wondering: where else is to go?

. There are some untied endings at the end. For example, why was the first victim in the bushes six hours before she is found in the pond? That is never answered, though the murder mystery is built on this fact...

Overall, very good, but not great episode.

8/10 HK