A brilliant detective series

A Jay

I have to say that I really enjoy this series, but I did prefer Caroline Quentin to Julia Sawalha. Quentin could just deliver a better comedy performance and was less stilted. Not to criticise Sawalha's performance though, she was still a brilliant sidekick for Jonathan.

The basic premise of the series is that magicians assistant Jonathan Creek and in the first 3 series writer Maddy Magellan are invited to solve seemingly impossible murders and crimes. Jonathan uses his skills of logic to determine exactly what happened, and it is usually the most complex set of incidents. What makes the series so good is the comedy moments. Quentin and Davies are the perfect coupling. My favourite episode would have to be "Ghost's Forge". It is brilliantly written, and has a twist where Maddy gets her own back on Jonathan and leaves him with a mystery to solve. The shocking twist at the end though where the mystery is solved was a great case of misdirection. Personally I think it could survive another couple of specials and a series, but much more and the stories will start to dry up and it would lose it's edge. It would be great if a series was made for this year then Caroline Quentin could return for a one-off Christmas special and then put an end to the series, it would be able to go out on a high that way.

Overall I would say this is a fantastic series, but a warning to the writers, you can have too much of a good thing!!

score /10

A Jay 21 January 2005

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1003938/