Country Matters

There is nothing like a planning dispute to bring out the worst in an English village. When a supermarket chain proposes a new store that would, in the eyes of the residents, ruin the quality of life in their corner of Midsomer, the argument over aisles and opening hours turns into a civil war. And once the first body turns up, Barnaby and DC Ben Jones have to work out which of the village's private failings spilled over into murder. Marital infidelity plays its part, as does contaminated soil, and it would be rude to leave out the kinky sex. Those are the ingredients; the death is what happens when they all get stirred together.

The case pulls in the usual orbit of familiar faces. Joyce Barnaby provides the domestic anchorage, Dr George Bullard lends his professional eye, and the suspects come thick and fast: Frank Hopkirk, played by Tim Hardy; Ginny and Orlando Lamington in the hands of Juliet Aubrey and Jonny Phillips; Celia and Jeremy Patchett, courtesy of Madeleine Potter and John McAndrew; and Rose Southerly, given quiet dimension by Clare Holman.

Andrew Payne and Caroline Graham wrote it, with Richard Holthouse directing. The plot keeps the supermarket row and the private shame of a handful of households on the same thread, so the investigation never feels like two separate stories stitched together. The mystery resolves fairly, with the clues laid out for anyone paying attention.

What sticks is the reminder that the loudest threat is rarely the real one. The corporate development may be the thing everyone argues about, but the motives that actually lead to murder sit closer to home, in marriages and old secrets that have nothing to do with planning permission. Barnaby has spent a career knowing this, and the episode lets him prove it again. That is the show's quiet pleasure, and it is on full display here.