'Midsomer Murders' Season 24 Sets Acorn TV Premiere

Among the British mystery TV set, only Silent Witness currently beats out Midsomer Murders for the longest-running series still producing episodes today. However, Silent Witness, for whatever reason, never really caught on in the States, partly because it wasn't based on a preexisting novel and, therefore, not picked up by PBS at the time. (A shame, really, the pathologist-based series, which has been on the air since 1996, is over on BritBox.) Midsomer Murders, on the other hand, which arrived all of a year later, had the literary cred of being adapted by Anthony Horowitz and Douglas Watkinson from the Chief Inspector Barnaby series by Caroline Graham, and wound up on many a local PBS station in the early aughts. By the mid-2010s, it was on Netflix and BritBox, before finally becoming an Acorn TV exclusive, where it resides today.

Since the 2020s, Midsomer Murders arrival has been an end-of-the-year event, especially since the episode count dropped from six installments a year after 2019 to four. Acorn TV has confirmed that 2023 will be no exception, as the show's 24th season is set to debut the first week of December and run through the holidays. The show's current star, Neil Dudgeon, returns for his 12th season as DCI John Barnaby, officially bringing him one season away from tying original star John Nettles, who led the show for 13 seasons before passing off the baton. Nick Hendrix, who plays his current sergeant/bagman DS Jamie Winter.

Acorn TV has not yet released a trailer, but we have a happy holiday from the cast that never gets old.

Here's the synopsis for Season 24 and the episode titles.

Homicide, blackmail, greed, and betrayal: just a taste of what goes on behind the well-trimmed hedges of Midsomer County in this deliciously sinister series. But the culprits are no match for DCI John Barnaby and DS Jamie Winter.

1. "The Devil's Work"
2. "Book of the Dead"
3. "Claws Out"
4. "A Climate of Death"

Dudgeon and Hendrix will once again be joined by Fiona Dolman as Sarah Barnaby, Isabel Shaw as Betty Barnaby, and Annette Badland as Dr. Fleur Perkins. Usual scribes Julia Gilbert and Maria Ward are credited with writing the first two episodes. Roberto Bangura, Gill Wilkinson, Paul Gibson, and Leon Lopez are all back to direct an episode each.

Midsomer Murders Season 24 debuts on Acorn TV on Monday, December 4, with new episodes premiering every Monday through December 25, 2023.