He lives in a Windmill?

There are times when I frickin' love television and times when it bores the hell out of me. There I am, surfing through all that is available on the iPlayer and find that the thing I really want to watch most of all is last week's episode of Have I Got News For You. The one I've already watched. Twice.

I really don't think I have much to talk about at this point, although the keen followers of my habits will notice that I'm ridiculously behind on posting these things, which is pretty much the norm when it comes to me and blogging. I'm not all that reliable at it when it comes down to it.

Well. Sort of.

So instead I'm going to scan my DVD shelf and find something that I'd like to talk about from the dim distant past of memory. However, since it's much bigger than the series I've been talking about in the past, I'm going to break it into two parts, just so that I don't have to think of something else to write about next time. Because, you know, lazy.

JONATHAN CREEK.
(Part 1)

So to start off with I'm just going to talk about the first three proper seasons, which were the Caroline Quentin years, from 1997 to 2000. Or as I like to think of it, the better part of the show's history.

So, Jonathan Creek... what can I say about it that hasn't been said already? Posted as a detective series that focuses on bizarre methods and even more bizarre explanations for those methods, rather than motive and criminial intention, and with a heavy bent on the craft of the Stage Magician, this series was sort of an alternative to the many, many, many, countless thousands of crime dramas that loited public television like chavs at a job centre. Okay, that was a bit harsh, crime drama is certainly more popular than any other in the history of television, but that to me just means that any particular series has to work extra hard to impress me or even get noticed in the first place. So making one about a nerdy anorak that lives in a windmill and solves crimes because he's a massive mystery buff is a step in the right direction.

The series was created and written completely by David Renwick, who was responsible for every single episode. Now, I've always felt a little wary about single-writer shows, mainly because as a writer myself I know that there's only so much imagination that goes on in there and every now and again a fresh perspective really helps freshen the show up a little. And lets face it, there were certainly times when this show needed a little freshness. While the characters were quirky and eccentric (the way that Jonathan and Maddy play off each other works brilliantly well) and the plots are all technically clever, there are quite a few that have a sense of being over stodgy and full of technical detail that detracts from the actual sense of story. The supporting character of Adam Klaus, however, is sheer genius throughout.

The problem with crime is that the real stuff is committed through passion. Passion isn't planned, it just happens. So the majority of the crimes within this series are utterly implausible due to the amount of depth within.

In fact, the very best episodes of this series (Time Waits For Norman and The Omega Man in particular) are the ones that don't actually revolve around murder, but instead elaborte con jobs that are designed not to hurt anyone.

Interestingly enough, the role of Adam Klaus was first played by Anthony Stewart Head, who then defected to the States in order to play a librarian in some schloky vampire series or something. Stuart Milligan took over and pretty much improved on the role in the second season onwards, with the majority of the comedy in the series coming from Klaus and his antics. In fact, a number of comedic actors were in the series, only to play straight-faced characters who barely cracked a smile.

So, if they stayed away from murder, the first twenty or so episodes over the first three years were great, they were in-depth, detailed, well-structured, great characters and a sense that the joke, somehow, was on you.

Next up:... more Creek.