All Rise...

Judge David Johnson has a mind to spill. He's a slob.

Editor's Note

Our review of A Mind To Kill: Series 1, published February 17th, 2010, is also available.

The Charge

Travel warning: Wales is full of deranged perverts.

The Case

Noel Bain (Philip Madoc) is a gruff Welsh detective, known for his no-nonsense investigative attitude and his crotchetiness. And while he may be bearded and salty, he gets results and is often immediately called in for the more unnerving crimes that go down in Wales.

This third go-round—A Mind to Kill: Series 3—features eight, feature-length made-for-TV mysteries, spread over four discs, and featuring dastardly villains, virtually all of whom possess some serous sexuality issues. So in other words: lighthearted viewing!

Disc 1
• "Shadow Falls"
Things start out light and fluffy: with a young boy falling to his death from a waterfall! From there it gets crazier as Bain digs into the boy's family community and unearths some disturbing psycho-sexual tomfoolery.

• "Box"
A sexual deviant with serious gender confusion has taken to kidnapping women and holding them in a box before killing them. It gets personal for Bain when his constable daughter is the latest to vanish.

Disc 2
• "The Inner Life of Strangers"
A popular musician moves to rural homestead, takes up painting, and watches her entourage get systematically expunged.

• "Colour Blind"
Time for a dose of multiculturalism and racial tension when a Pakistani man is murdered and the skinheads show up. The truth is more nuanced.

Disc 3
• "Sound Bites"
A politician's son plots revenge on his father and that includes the use of violent force.

• "Engineer"
After their daughter lands in a coma due to a botched surgery, the greiving couple decides to pay back the surgeon with threats and gunplay. Bain must defuse the situation before anyone gets wiped out.

Disc 4
• "Blood and Water"
Bain attempts to nail the murderer of a pregnant woman, but has trouble circumventing the brother, a cop.

• "The Little House in the Forest"
A teenager's strangled body is found in the woods and all signs point to the reclusive pedophile who lives nearby.

There you go, 776 minutes of Welsh crime-fighting. The series starts out with a bang, with the first two episodes ratcheting up the depravity, but things eventually settle down, as the cases become more mainstream and less sex-obsessed. I admit the opening sequence of that falling kid snapped my attention, but my mind wandered as the series tread more innocuous ground.

Still, these are good mysteries, well-staged and well-acted. As Bain, Philip Muldoc is even-keel, yet bad-ass; in a subdued, stern fatherly sort of way. He may not be flashy or memorable, but the guy is extraordinarily competent, which, I suppose, is just another way of saying "He's not flashy or memorable." Recommended for mystery-mongers.

Episodes receive solid 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen transfers, 2.0 stereo mixes, and text-only info about the female leads of the series.

The Verdict

Not Guilty. Don't go to Wales.

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