It didn't occur to me until very recently that I'd actually missed the whole final "season" — if "season" is the word I'm looking for — of David Renwick's Jonathan Creek. I'd watched up to the tail end of Sheridan Smith's time on the show, ducking out when Sarah Alexander joined the cast as Jonathan's wife Polly. Nothing against the actress or the concept or the show; I think around that time, I'd begun to spend more time watching things for work and less time hunting down rips of things when they aired.
A few weeks ago, while showing later episodes to my friend Katy (we take turns showing each other series on Wednesday evenings), I realized that the last four episodes would be episodes I hadn't seen, either. We'd be equally in the dark. Which was kind of cool.
So now I've finished it. And I don't really know how to feel.
There are very valid complaints to be made about Jonathan Creek as a whole. Some people I know are turned off to it because it's not necessarily the sort of mystery you can solve alongside the sleuth. A lot of the solutions are frankly ridiculous, but that's never bothered me since we've known since day one that these were going to be really unhinged crimes. And, admittedly, there are a lot of jokes and bits that really have not weathered the test of time. But on the whole I have fun with it.
The appearance of Jonathan's wife Polly, and his move from the windmill and the world of magic to a mundane desk job, felt odd. Don't get me wrong, if my two options were "work a 9-to-5" and "be forever associated with stage magician Adam Klaus," I would also flee to something a little less likely to involve constant litigation. And I read somewhere that the windmill was no longer available for filming, so I get it. But there was something a little unsettling about the idea that Polly had "tamed" or "rescued" Jonathan. I appreciate that the final four episodes subverted this at least a little. Yes he's wearing a suit and tie to work, yes his biggest concern between cases is babysitting for a neighbor or whether he'll build a scarecrow for the village fair. But he still has that itch to investigate, and Polly does demonstrate an eventual knack (and occasional enjoyment) of lateral thinking. But the "wifey says no" vibe that would sometimes surface, especially early in her appearances, rubbed me the wrong way. I feel like Jonathan could settle down, get married, and investigate on the side without it being portrayed as something Done To Him.
All that aside, my thoughts are primarily on the film-length finale, Daemons' Roost. That's where I'm most undecided. I've seen that it's apparently Renwick's farewell to the show, short of a Kickstarted book coming out soon, and it definitely feels like that. But I'm on the fence about where it leaves me. There are pros and cons. Walk with me. (Spoilers for a decade-old mystery show follow.)
Pro: Jonathan's Backstory
As my friend and I noticed while watching, this really did feel like a farewell to Jonathan Creek. Jonathan clears out the windmill, and with this resurfacing of old belongings comes a resurfacing of old memories. The story of his brother writing him fake notes from the faeries, and the discovery that he kept these tiny notes in an out-of-date desk globe, was a sweet capstone to the character enchanted by magic but still rooted in reality.
Con: What Came After
As I mentioned, this story resulted because Jonathan and Polly are junking out the windmill. With a slightly different chemistry, this could have been a sweet moment with no odd overhangs. But with the things I previously mentioned, this idea that Polly "rescued" Jonathan from his previous life, it feels a little less like Jonathan has made a choice and more like Polly has won. It was still a sweet and somewhat sad moment, but it felt odd for that.
Pro: Warwick Davis
Jonathan Creek has always had awesome guest stars, especially if you're a Doctor Who fan. Seeing Warwick Davis get pride of place in this episode as a magic-loving, mystery-solving priest was fantastic. It's rare we get to see guest stars in step with Jonathan, with a notable exception being the late Rik Mayall as a surprisingly competent police detective. So I adored this.
Con: So, Jonathan straight up killed a man.
All right, I don't know how I feel about this. I'm not saying the faves can't be problematic. And we are watching a murder mystery where life is cheap enough to buy narrative hooks with. And the person in question was trying to kill him and Polly, and would absolutely have done so if not taken care of. I suppose it helps to realize Jonathan and Polly's somewhat awkwardly-written relationship — he'd fry a man alive in a hell pit for her — but he's never really been depicted as someone willing and able to kill, and it was a somewhat odd choice in the eleventh hour. Could this have been spun out into a narrative thread? "Wow, maybe this life is getting too dangerous now that I have loved ones, perhaps it's time to put this aside at last and focus on this new life"? Absolutely. But we didn't go there. We just fried a man in a hell pit.
Pro: The Hammer Horror stuff.
Couching Daemons' Roost in over-the-top Hammer horror, and in a dramatized depiction of an allegedly real case of demon worship, was kind of par for the course for Jonathan Creek. But it was still very fun. They nailed the look and feel of the old films while still managing to create an actual mystery to unravel.
Con: The Hammer Horror stuff.
I... don't know how I feel about the torture room. The overall idea — the change of perspective and the automaton — is pretty fun. But after walking away from the episode for a day, I'm not sure how it holds up under fridge logic. (A common Creek problem, and one I generally just say "whatever" to.) The "Striped Unicorn" case felt more like standard speed for the series, but this one felt like a case of power creep: needing a huge, over-the-top mystery to go out on, and then having to construct a solution. I don't know, I've never met any Victorian cultists. Maybe they would build a torture room with an automaton.
Pro: Classic Case Name-Checks.
It was pretty fun to actually hear old cases revisited, even if only briefly. Treating the Striped Unicorn as one among them was a neat approach, too. It also reminded me that Satan's Chimney isn't available on BritBox, and I need to find it so Katy can see it.
Con: The Whole Tyree Subplot.
One thing I've noticed about this era of Jonathan Creek is that it tries to make its episodes extremely dense. There have been multiple stories per episode before, but there are a lot of threads in the final four. That's not a bad thing, but I feel like the whole House of Monkeys connection existed for extra peril and very little else. I legitimately believed it was going to be a brief one-off, and it just felt like a bit too much amongst everything else.
There was a sense of major difference throughout these final four episodes: some by desire, some by necessity, some because things simply change when you're telling a story. It ended on a dissonant note, but not a heinous one. At the end of it all, I think I had confirmed for me what so many viewers continue to say: the seasons with Caroline Quentin were the gold standard.
If you're into that sort of thing, of course.
