Jonathan Creek – Daemons’ Roost [DVD] [2017]

Product Information

Despite this death knell hanging over Renwick’s second best creation ( the first being well and truly buried), a three part 2014 mini-series was commissioned, but again disappointed many fans as the strange character restyling continued to the detriment of the actual puzzle solving.

Indeed, you can’t help but feel that maybe the Christmas special format is somewhat stifling Jonathan Creek, with Renwick spreading himself too thin over 90 minutes. Still, though the episode does feel like it pays tribute to the past, it doesn’t completely neglect what was then the show’s present. He got off the charge but was keen to kill again, knowing that Alison was due to inherit the fancy pile that is Daemons' Roost.

How in the hell you can end up married to someone who is so keen to wipe from existence everything you were before meeting them and tell yourself this is a good thing is beyond me, and a weird narrative choice on Renwick’s part.

With his health failing, Clore summons his stepdaughter Alison to Daemons’ Roost to share with her the chilling truth of what happened to her family there. Definitely some weaknesses but overall, a strong entry and, if it is the final one, then a decent send off with a mild but well-earned valedictory feeling. Produced by the BBC and written by David Renwick, it stars Alan Davies as the title character who works as a creative consultant to a stage magician while also solving seemingly supernatural mysteries through his talent for logical deduction and his understanding of illusions. Honestly, I’m tempted to just do an episode-by-episode guide with the references I’ve spotted, but I think that might be too nerdy even for me. Guest stars: John Bird, Hattie Hayridge, Jonathan Ross, Nina Sosanya, John Bennett, Cavan Clerkin and Lee Ingleby.Imagine a cross between James Herbert’s “Haunted”, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Musgrave Ritual” and …something else (I’m not sure what)… and that would be a good description of the atmosphere of this episode. It’s this kind of thing that shows that Renwick has still got the flair to weave a complex mystery that has always made Creek so popular. When an old woman experiences dreams of the future, including the murder of a Swiss businessman and a car crash, Jonathan must find out what is happening before her dreams of being attacked by a one-eyed man with a sword come to pass.

So we get treated to more time with Jonathan throwing away all his stuff from the windmill — y’know, the mementos of the magic career that formed the first 30-odd years of his life — and reminiscing about a dead brother we’ve never heard of before. Gur bayl cneg bs gur fbyhgvba V qvfyvxr vf Elzna vzcrefbangvat n ubzr frphevgl rkcreg sbe frireny qnlf.Guest stars: Sheila Gish, Saskia Mulder, Anthony Head (his only appearance as Adam Klaus), Colin Baker, Alistair McGowan.

Jonathan must discover how a retired stage psychic apparently predicted a set of winning lottery numbers decades before the draw was made.The mysteries that Jonathan has to look into here are both interesting though I think the modern-day case suffers a little from not having a clear focal point or question that Jonathan has to answer. One of the first things that I will say about this episode is that it is an absolutely perfect blend of old-school horror, eccentric comedy and Sherlock Holmes-style detection. An early misguided joke about Polly accidentally mentioning ‘cotton picking’ in front of one her new black acquaintances, proves crucial as we’re lead to assume that her husband working at the property is the black CCTV installer, rather than a white bearded taxi driver seen momentarily at the start. It’s my job to put it back together,” May quips, before a rare moment of tension when he can’t place his magnetising kit.