Mystery Maniacs

🎙️ Episode:  https://share.transistor.fm/s/306a85b0
đź““ Show Notes: https://midsomermaniacs.transistor.fm/episodes/mystery-maniacs-clues-and-reviews-8-10-26

New Mystery Maniacs Clues & Reviews for 08/10/26!

Show Notes

Jekyll
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497298/


Thanks again for listening!
 
Mark & Sarah

-----------------------------------
Upcoming Tentative  Schedule
  • August 12: Mystery Maniacs - Cold Cases - Midsomer Season 03 BINGE
  • August 17: Mystery Maniacs - Clues and Reviews 8/17/26
  • August 19: Mystery Maniacs - Cold Cases - Midsomer Season 04 BINGE
  • August 31: Mystery Maniacs - Clues and Reviews 8/31/26
  • September 2: Mystery Maniacs - Cold Cases - Midsomer Season 05 BINGE
  • September 2 - August Newsletter

------------------------------------
NEWSLETTER: Keep up with all things Mystery Maniac through our newsletter!

Signup here for free: https://midsomermaniacs.transistor.fm/

------------------------------------
Maniac Merch: https://midsomer-maniacs-podcast.myspreadshop.com/
------------------------------------
Connect with the Maniacs:
Rate us on Spotify and Apple!
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/MysteryManiacsPodcast
Twitter.com - https://twitter.com/mystery_maniacs
Sarah’s twitter -https://www.twitter.com/intellagirl
Mark’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/bell_typewriter
IG - https://www.instagram.com/mysterymaniacspodcast/
Email - mysterymaniacspodcast@gmail.com
Web - mysterymaniacspodcast.com


Creators and Guests

Host
Mark Bell
Co-host of Mystery Maniacs
Host
Sarah Smith-Robbins
Co-host of Mystery Maniacs

What is Mystery Maniacs?

Mystery Maniacs Podcast is a comedy recap podcast dedicated to British Mystery Television. Formerly, Midsomer Maniacs podcast.

Sarah:

Hey, Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Mystery Maniacs. Welcome to Clues and Reviews. Episode two. Wow. You guys actually Boogaloo.

Mark:

Actually

Sarah:

yes. You can't say anything is episode two and not make a reference to Electric Boogaloo.

Mark:

Yes. Break into Electric Boogaloo.

Sarah:

It's the best sequel name ever.

Mark:

A sequel name that I remember upon us hearing it went the what?

Sarah:

You know, boogaloo. Everybody knows boogaloo.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

We get to talk about what we've talked about this week, what we've watched this week, what we're anticipating coming up. And then I have a question for you. Excellent. And for our listeners.

Mark:

So I was at Gen Con last week.

Sarah:

And If you don't know, Gen Con is the great meeting of board game geeks from everywhere. Board games in Indianapolis.

Mark:

And RPG gig.

Sarah:

Well, yes. Tabletop games.

Mark:

It's not that kind of geek, Sarah.

Sarah:

You just proved my point.

Mark:

It's the biggest convention in North America for board games and tabletop games.

Sarah:

And he sends me a picture of Murdoch Mystery's the board game.

Mark:

Yes. Because it got announced at the con, and I actually went to the people who produce it.

Sarah:

You went to the booth?

Mark:

I went to the booth.

Sarah:

Said where's my Murdoch game?

Mark:

And they had a Murdoch box there. It was an

Sarah:

empty box. It's a prototype.

Mark:

Oh, it gets even better. So not only was it an empty box, but it had Batman on the back of it. Like, all it was was a box front.

Sarah:

With a sticker, like a mock up.

Mark:

Yes. In this game, you play one of the characters of the show. So you play Murdoch or Crabtree or Brackenridge or Julia or Yeah. It's all those characters. It's also a hidden person game.

Mark:

And what that means is one of the people that you're playing is the bad guy. Like Clue. So yeah. No. Not like Clue because Clue, you can play the game without being one of the people.

Sarah:

That's true.

Mark:

No. In this game, you're actively you know you're the the culprit.

Sarah:

So it's not a two player game?

Mark:

It cannot be a two player game. It cannot be a two player game because if it's You

Sarah:

did it.

Mark:

It's a two player game and I get the card that says Murdoch is not the murderer, I go, you're the murderer.

Sarah:

If you're playing Murdoch. Yes.

Mark:

And it's coming out in 2027. That is kind of all we know.

Sarah:

But we'll keep you up to date.

Mark:

They know about us. I told them all about us. So hopefully we will maybe get a pre copy or something. We could talk about it. That would be sure.

Mark:

We don't accept any sponsorships, and we're not looking for that. But

Sarah:

But I'll take free stuff all day long.

Mark:

It is certainly something that perked our interest. It's not my type of game mostly because I play games, either solo games or games with Sarah. And in this case, of those work with the game.

Sarah:

Or or games that take you two days to set up on a table and you lose it in thirty minutes and have to start over again. I have done that too. Also. So But we'll keep you up to date if we learn more about it when we find out

Mark:

that it's coming soon as we know, we'll we'll keep you up to date. Yeah. Second of all, I put a post out about a show that got recommended for me, which was Murder in a Small Town. Now this is cozy, cozy detective show set in Canada, set in an incredibly nostalgic place in Canada. Right?

Mark:

So it's set in a place in Canada in which a show called the Beachcombers was set when I was a kid. It was very interesting. I wanted to go become a beachcomber. It was a whole thing.

Sarah:

Because that's

Mark:

a career. Yeah. Exactly. And there's a famous restaurant in that show, Molly's Reach, which became a real restaurant, which is then featured again in this show.

Sarah:

I have to say, I think you like this show because of those tie ins to your Canadian upbringing. To me, it's hallmark all day long. I can't get into it.

Mark:

I feel that this show doesn't do Hallmark and doesn't do Midsommar. It sits too much in the middle, and so it doesn't really know what it is. I think the love plot is kind of good, but I don't like the rest of the plots.

Sarah:

So if you watch if you watch it, if you check it out, let us know what you think. It's called Murder in a Small Town. Yep. Do you remember where you watched it?

Mark:

I watched it on Amazon Prime somewhere.

Sarah:

Okay. So So give it a shot.

Mark:

Yep. Let us know what you think.

Sarah:

If you wanna see Mark's beachcombing beach, I guess.

Mark:

With Bruno Drewsie.

Sarah:

Okay. Stuff we've watched together this week. Yes. Unlike the show that you kinda liked and I don't. Yep.

Sarah:

We watched season two of inspector Ellis.

Mark:

Which was fantastic and way too short.

Sarah:

Sharon d Clark plays inspector Ellis, and I love that character. She is bad ass. She's got big mom energy when she needs it. But she will absolutely give somebody a hug. Like it's just so well done.

Sarah:

The only thing I can't wrap my brain around is the guy who plays her sidekick has the weirdest comb over hair I have ever seen. And the actor does not have that bad hair. I don't know why they've given him the horrible hair.

Mark:

DS is

Sarah:

a mystery.

Mark:

DS Judd Harper is played by Andrew Gower, who was, Sherlock on Murdoch

Sarah:

The delusional guy who thought he was Sherlock Holmes and Murdoch. Yeah. But, man, if you watch it, let us know what you think about his hair. It is horrific.

Mark:

It's it's bad hair. He seems to be a bit Troy like. It's a bit on the make all time. Bad.

Sarah:

Yep. I don't know. He's trying to learn, though, unlike Troy.

Mark:

Yeah. He is trying to learn. Why are there not 10 episodes of this show?

Sarah:

I don't know. Each story is two episodes, and there's what? Three stories? Two. Two.

Sarah:

So there's a total of four episodes.

Mark:

Four episodes, and there was three episodes in the first season, but they were ninety minutes long.

Sarah:

But it is absolutely worth it. Yeah. It's so good. She's

Mark:

so good. Good.

Sarah:

And we also started the new season of Chelsea detective.

Mark:

Which has all the things that we wanted it to do. Yeah. It has the DS in strange jumpsuits. Yep. It has

Sarah:

He he still lives on the boat.

Mark:

He still lives on the boat, and there's no Astrid.

Sarah:

No. His ex wife is actually gone. The annoying ex wife who just kept appearing and disrupting everything seems to be gone. Gone. Gone.

Sarah:

These Watch the show up in the next episode.

Mark:

This episode this show does a really good job of it. Police forces have lots of people who work on them, and so you need lots of people to do a murder investigation. Unlike Midsommar where it's only two people ever. Yeah. Right?

Mark:

So there are sub characters here that are good sub characters. It's not like where Ludwig sometimes suffers from. There are 30 people now working on this.

Sarah:

And we don't know who any of them

Mark:

don't know, and they lack characterization.

Sarah:

But it's it's good. We also started watching Big Brother.

Mark:

We're junkies for bad TV.

Sarah:

It used to be our summer kind of junk food TV. And that's kind of what it is now. It's like, there's nothing else on. Let's just watch an episode of Big Brother and see what's going on. It's kind of fun to really dislike a bunch of people that you're never gonna meet.

Mark:

We're we're far more interested in traitors and, the South Korean reality show. Devil's Plan. That's really good. Supposedly coming out season three of Devil's Plan is supposed to come out this year. It is by far the most intelligent reality show of all time.

Mark:

They play games in which the instructions take anything from ten to fifteen minutes to explain.

Sarah:

Sometimes I don't

Mark:

really understand difficult. Yeah. These people are way smarter

Sarah:

than us

Mark:

and featuring a Kelly grad.

Sarah:

Yeah. Last year. So Then there's a few shows that we have a little bit more news about that are coming out in the future at some point. The new Hercule, that's the younger version of Hercule.

Mark:

So we get

Sarah:

And then another season of Ludwig. Yeah. Let's talk about those

Mark:

real We got a we got a drop of information about Hercule. Like so we learned who was playing Hercule a little while ago, and we learned that it's now called Hercule. Mhmm. Like Endeavor. Mhmm.

Mark:

I'm like, okay. And Edward Bluminel plays Poirot, and we knew that. And he's he was in Agatha Christie's six seven dials on Netflix, not the original seven dials

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

But the Netflix version because he would have been not born. Yeah. In the original version.

Sarah:

Because the whole point is that it's about Poirot's life just after he comes to England as a refugee.

Mark:

Right? So we were worried it wasn't a period piece. We were worried he was in London. We were worried.

Sarah:

Yeah. But it's set in the nineteen twenties

Mark:

in London. Set between the wars like it should be.

Sarah:

Hastings is there. Jap is there. We don't know who's playing them yet.

Mark:

We don't know who's playing them. We know a bunch of people who are in it, but we don't know what parts they're playing. And the big announcement this week is that James Nesbitt is in it. Now James Nesbitt who Jekyll. No.

Mark:

Jekyll. If you have not watched Jekyll, first of all, get in your chair, get Jekyll, get, like, the straps from the roller coaster ride, put those on. And a big bowl of popcorn. And a big bowl of popcorn and motor through Jekyll.

Sarah:

It's so

Mark:

fantastic. Down to the last two seconds of that show.

Sarah:

Yeah. James Nesbins is such a good actor.

Mark:

We're not going to get any more, Jekyll. It's unfortunate.

Sarah:

Well, no, you don't need anymore.

Mark:

That's it. That's true. You don't really need anymore. But down to the last second, it is crazy amazing.

Sarah:

I remember when we finished watching it, we were both like, the credits rolled and we were like, what? What? We had to talk about it. I'm like, oh, oh, now I understand. Oh, I understand that now.

Sarah:

Wow.

Mark:

He also reminds me a bit of my brother. He's a little bit

Sarah:

He looks a little bit my

Mark:

middle brother, so I like that. And he kinda has a mannerisms a little bit.

Sarah:

Oh, we don't know. We know that he is playing

Mark:

The James adversary.

Sarah:

Yeah. That he plays an adversary, but we don't

Mark:

know who that is. Now, like, there's no big adversary except for, I would say, maybe the Countess in

Sarah:

War I don't think James Nesbitt is playing the Countess.

Mark:

I don't think James Nesbitt is playing the Countess.

Sarah:

He wouldn't be very convincing as a as a fancy lady.

Mark:

You know? So I don't

Sarah:

know who it is. Doesn't have that look.

Mark:

But then again

Sarah:

So it would be funny if they tried.

Mark:

It would be. It would be. Very different show. Like, Moriarty appears in, like, two stories.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

That's it. Yeah. Like, all this stuff they added in the

Sarah:

But Poirot doesn't have a Moriarty.

Mark:

Yeah. He doesn't have a Moriarty, and I'm interested to know what person this is.

Sarah:

Yeah. If you have an idea of who you think the adversary might be, maybe he's gonna be Ms. Marple.

Mark:

And so they're doing three books. That's what the the report said. Three books. Now it's easy to see that the affair of style at Stiles, Mysterious Affair at Stiles is clear to be the first book. It's the first Poirot book.

Mark:

It's how Poirot meets Hastings after seeing him in the war. It It makes a million

Sarah:

But I bits could see them repurposing the plot of Roger Aykroyd and putting Poirot in it. There's a lot of the television versions that have Marple in it that Marple isn't even in

Mark:

that story. Right? So they

Sarah:

You don't know.

Mark:

They could do anything they want. Is there anything you don't want them to do? So they're not gonna do any of the Egypt or any of the triple ones? No. No triangle at Rome.

Sarah:

No. Express.

Mark:

None of that.

Sarah:

I don't know. I would like to I would like to see oh, which is a story where Poirot and Jap pretend to they dress up like robbers to and Poirot and

Mark:

stuff blackmailer one Yeah. Which I think that that could work.

Sarah:

Where Poirot gets arrested because Hastings jumps through a window and runs away. I

Mark:

believe we called him Kool Aid Man,

Sarah:

Hastings. Yes.

Mark:

That would be funny. From the first season Poirot. I think that's a good one. One. I don't I don't think they should do you don't like five little piggies, so they shouldn't do that.

Mark:

I don't like sad cypress. They shouldn't do that. It it would be nice to have at least one manor one.

Sarah:

They could do the clap and cook.

Mark:

They could do clap them cook. They could do the mirror one where they go to the house of the art guy and he has the mirror.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

That could be one. They could do the Christmas one.

Sarah:

He's an architect.

Mark:

Yeah. That's sorry. That's right. They could do the Christmas

Sarah:

right. I love it. Oh.

Mark:

So We're such nerds. What what I don't like about this list of people they're so connected with things for, I wish there were more women. Tamsen Gregg is in it.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Who is a comedian and a well known person in British television shows. But there are not a lot of women other than that. Joffrey is in it.

Sarah:

Joffrey from Game of Thrones.

Mark:

Which I think is great because he did such a great job in Game of Thrones unfortunately everyone on the planet hates him because of how did he

Sarah:

It's like the kid who played, Draco in the Harry Potter movies. He's like typecast.

Mark:

I really hope that the that Jack Gleeson comes in and plays like an incredibly useful person and has

Sarah:

helpful Like a friendly nice person.

Mark:

Friendly nice person and not horrible. So it's in the twenties. It's set in London. We know who they're gonna meet. As soon as we know more information-

Sarah:

It's gonna come out next year.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

It's a ways out. I don't even like knowing about shows that aren't gonna come out anytime soon. It really annoys me, but Oh, well.

Mark:

I understand, but this got so much buzz

Sarah:

this week. Yeah. The other thing that we have heard about this week is a new series season of Ludwig, which is the David Mitchell show where he plays the guy who creates puzzles for a living, but then he has to impersonate his twin brother who's a cop. It's it's It's very fun.

Mark:

Fant love David Mitchell. Fantastic concept.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

They really have to make season two good Yeah. Because they have some they they did the well, there's a cliffhanger at the end of season one, and they need to bring it home. And they have a new person joining the cast, which is Mark Bonheur who we Bonheur.

Sarah:

Who we call Discount David Tennant.

Mark:

He's the man.

Sarah:

First husband on Shetland.

Mark:

Yes. Not the second husband.

Sarah:

Who's the detective. He's the detective. Yeah. He's the gray haired guy who's actually the father of the daughter.

Mark:

And he plays a newspaper editor and he's in all six episodes. So he's a major character.

Sarah:

Well, he'll be fun. Yep. It'll be fun. It's got David David Mitchell in it. I love David Mitchell.

Sarah:

I've read all the books that he's written.

Mark:

He's so funny. David Mitchell is without a doubt one of the funniest, most interesting human beings on the planet. Which he would go, oh, well, thank you.

Sarah:

Yeah. Thank you. So we wanted to end these clues and reviews each week with a little conversation starter, something that we've been thinking about. So it's my turn this week. This largely comes out of my brain being kooky, I guess.

Sarah:

When you immerse yourself as much as we do, and I'm sure our listeners do, in mysteries of all types, books, movies, TV shows, all that stuff, you start to think in kind of plots and tropes and typical kinds of crime and suspicious behavior. Yes. Do you, in your daily life, in the real world, not in all these stories, do you ever see things that you think, Oh, oh, and your brain starts reeling out a plot.

Mark:

I constantly think of these things for a couple of things. One, I am always, and I hope this doesn't put off any listeners,

Sarah:

I

Mark:

am always like, If there was a body in there, how long would it take to be found? Yeah.

Sarah:

There's a lot of culverts and ditches that are way overgrown that it's like, Ah, you know?

Mark:

Those groves of trees in the middle of fields that no one has been to for years.

Sarah:

If you had to hide a body, that'd a good spot. To me, it's more, and not real life crimes, not the actual horrible things that happen to people who live around you.

Mark:

In fact, that puts us off.

Sarah:

I'm not I'm not putting my nose in anything like that. That's not how my brain works. The way my brain works is it invents intrigue where there is none pretty much. Yes. Like for example, there is a cul de sac that is across the street from our house.

Sarah:

And almost every day of the week, there are like 30 cars parked in this cul de sac. And then they all leave and we have no idea why.

Mark:

It's a cult.

Sarah:

And I absolutely wanna know why.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

But short of walking over there and waiting around on the sidewalk for them to all come out and say, What are you doing here?

Mark:

Now, is a different type of person than I am, because if I am outside and I saw one of those people going to their car, I would walk over and ask them.

Sarah:

And you'd be like, hey. I'm just curious because I live right there and I see all your cars, but they don't come out at the same time.

Mark:

I watch them enough that I I can't predict. Totally do that. The person walking around that you are like, that seems off. That that Not off in a dangerous way. No.

Sarah:

I just invent a little story that explains what they're doing. But then there's stuff like, this is gonna make me sound so crazy. I drive home almost the same way every day, but I do come and go from work at different times. Sometimes I come home for lunch and sometimes I leave at three and sometimes I leave at four, but I'll tell you what, there is a woman who always wears an ankle length hobble skirt and carries an umbrella no matter what the weather is. And she is always on that sidewalk, walking on that street.

Sarah:

She knows when I'm leaving. And the one day I left half day and had to go to Kroger, she was there.

Mark:

Sarah was so excited when I saw this person. Because I was half

Sarah:

convinced that I was imagining her.

Mark:

So she has a name now? She's

Sarah:

The Hoggle Skirt

Mark:

Lady. Hoggle Skirt Lady. But I

Sarah:

can't just pull over and go, Hey, what are you doing? Why are you always on that sidewalk? Yep. When I'm here. It's a very me centric view of the world.

Mark:

And it's It also gets a little out of control. We have a friend. We've talked about this friend before, but we have a friend who is so squeaky. Like, what did you do on the weekend?

Sarah:

Not squeaky wheel. Squeaky clean.

Mark:

I fed homeless people and then went and helped at the animal shelter and then, you know, carried food to people who were cleaning the streets. Yeah. And, dude.

Sarah:

Why are you so tired? Oh, I was up all night caring for an abandoned animal.

Mark:

But but also does a great job. He's a really good teacher. Totally trustworthy. Totally trustworthy. He's always doing stuff with Perfect.

Mark:

His wife and his

Sarah:

Yes. So he must be killing somebody once a fortnight. I don't I don't know how you stay that perfect.

Mark:

Or he's a white slaver.

Sarah:

But he'd be doing it for charity. Yes. So what I wonder is if people who listen to us, who obviously consume the same kind of media that we do, has that ever happened to you? Do you make up little stories in your head, or do you see things that intrigue you, and then you're secretly nosy about it? Not anything that's a real crime, that's a No.

Sarah:

Heavy But does your brain gravitate? Like the day that Mo and I were driving to school, and the lady down the street, her door was open. Yep. And it was just standing open. And we thought, oh no, I hope nothing happened to her.

Sarah:

And we went up and she wasn't there. And we called the police because I was concerned. And they were like, Well, thanks for calling us. You can go. And Mo and I were kinda like, But we kinda wanna stay around and find out what's going on.

Sarah:

Is she in there? Is she dead? Has she been abducted? Is there a note? Like, what's going on?

Mark:

This is a hostage situation.

Sarah:

But no, were like, thanks, you can go. And we're like, okay, I guess we'll go.

Mark:

Are you sure you don't wanna keep me around

Sarah:

I more have more information I don't know about.

Mark:

I don't.

Sarah:

You never know. No. Do you need me to testify? Turns out she just left and left her front door open. She was like, oh, thanks for letting me know, and they locked the door.

Sarah:

And I was actually disappointed, I have to admit.

Mark:

I'm always

Sarah:

That nothing bad

Mark:

at that super interested in low level organized crime in small towns.

Sarah:

Like, you wanna know about that?

Mark:

I'm super interested in how that happens, how it goes on, what the police allow and don't allow. Who's extorting who? Yep.

Sarah:

Is there blackmail going on? Are there nasty letters going around?

Mark:

Well, and the university is a prime candidate for that. I wrote a book about it. Yeah.

Sarah:

But anyway, I just I wanted to bring it's like that kind of it's the first half of rear window.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

I would absolutely do what Jimmy Stewart does with the binoculars and checking out and making up in my mind, I think that man killed his wife. Oh my gosh. The second half, it becomes real.

Mark:

And I'm not interested in it.

Sarah:

Crosses the courtyard and is coming after him. Yeah. I don't want that part. But the first part, I would absolutely do that.

Mark:

And I'm not interested in true crime either. Like, the documentary crime documentaries we like are like the McDonald's one about the McDonald's monopoly game in which it was intriguing and

Sarah:

Or the one about the the people who cheated on the game show.

Mark:

Things like that. That's super interesting.

Sarah:

Not who killed this person and cut them up into 50 pieces. I don't I don't I'm not interested in that. So listeners, have you made up intrigue in your brain? Has gotten you in trouble?

Mark:

Let Tell us us about.

Sarah:

We wanna know.

Mark:

Does your spouse say, oh, don't think that. Yeah.

Sarah:

I think you're carried away, honey. Drop us a line. Send us a message on social media or an email or whatever and tell us how all these fictional plots have invaded your real life.

Mark:

Thank you so much for listening, Maniacs. We are getting through all of our craziness.

Sarah:

Yes. And

Mark:

this is helping us a ton.

Sarah:

Alright. Bye, Maniacs.

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs. Thanks for joining us on the Mystery Maniacs podcast. If you enjoyed our crazy podcast today, don't miss out on future episodes. Follow us on social media for updates, beyond the scenes content, and exclusive sneak peeks. Subscribe, like, and share to spread the word.

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs.