Good news for those who enjoy intelligent TV mysteries: the Jonathan Creek Newsletter reports that a new ninety-minute TV movie special from the British TV mystery series Jonathan Creek will go into production this fall and will be broadcast around Easter time next year.

Producer-writer David Renwick announced that the episode will be called "The Judas Tree" and will again feature actress Sheridan Smith as Joey Ross, Jonathan’s investigating partner introduced in the 2009 telefilm The Grinning Man. Renwick will direct, as he did with The Grinning Man.

Regarding the latter . . .

I had the good fortune to obtain a copy of The Grinning Man, as the episode has not yet been shown in the United States, having premiered in the UK on New Year’s Day this year. I can report that it’s an excellent mystery that revives the series after a so-so season four which aired in 2003.

The Grinning Man is very entertaining, with a good puzzle and a strong, mysterious atmosphere very reminiscent of the great John Dickson Carr, who was clearly a major influence on Creek producer Renwick.

Among the Carr-style elements are the setting in an English country house with a sinister history and supernatural trappings, the presence of alleged paranormal phenomena, "impossible" crimes (in this case a disappearance of both murderer and victim from a locked room, plus the appearance of a person in public a day after their presumed murder), wretched weather, references to sinister historical events and artifacts (in this case a ghastly Hieronymous Bosch painting, Nazis, and past murders), interpolations of rather broad comedy, and the presence of spiritualists, stage magicians, and well-to-do English people.

The film includes some quite suspenseful scenes, and a couple of sequences are clearly influenced by Italian giallo films, specifically those of Dario Argento. That last element works quite well, in fact, bringing a new stylistic element to freshen the series.

I am no great admirer of giallo films in general, as it happens, but I think the style works quite well as a bit of spice in a traditional-style mystery. The use of giallo style also fits well with the film’s generally Carrian atmosphere, as Carr greatly enjoyed using Grand Guignol effects in his novels and stories.

On the other hand, Jonathan’s character and his personal relationships are curiously dull, and some of the choices by the women in the story struck me as poorly motivated. The superb mystery elements and atmosphere, however, more than compensate for those deficiencies.

No U.S. showings of the episode have been announced as yet.

—S. T. Karnick