You know what you’re going to get with an episode of Midsomer Murders. The ultimate cosy crime drama, every episode features a murder – often funny, gruesome but rarely grisly – which DCI Barnaby and his pals must endeavour to solve. It’s lighthearted, fuss-free TV – even if it does revolve around a village with the highest murder rate in England. Your grandma watches it! It’s harmless! But someone at ITV doesn’t agree.
Log onto the broadcaster’s streaming service ITVX to watch Midsomer and on some episodes you’ll be greeted with a warning that the programme you’re about to watch will contain “some violent moments” and – dun dun duuuuun – “crime scene images”. Well… obviously? The word “murder” is quite literally in the title.
I’m usually a big defender of trigger warnings. There are serious, legitimate reasons why a person would want to avoid scenes of violence, sexual abuse or loud bangs – or at least anticipate and prepare for them. Giving someone fair warning of a situation that might make them uncomfortable or even relive past trauma is simply an act of consideration, giving someone the opportunity to gird one’s loins or avoid something entirely. Trigger warnings get a bad rap by the “anti-woke” brigade who see them as proof that the entire nation has gone soft. But in this case, I find myself joining their ranks.
Actor Anton Lesser, who appeared in two episodes of Midsomer, is flummoxed by the idea too: “I understand the good intentions of broadcasters who take care to warn of effects like flashing images, but I’m surprised something like Midsomer Murders warrants a warning,” he told the Daily Mail. “I do remember my character in Birds of Prey hurling a plate of sausages to the floor – perhaps there should be a disclaimer ‘no sausages were hurt in this film’.”
On ITV’s part, they say they’re just doing their job. “Programming that contains potentially sensitive or distressing themes, content or language has carried appropriate guidance since our launch,” a spokesperson explained. “We regularly review our catalogue to ensure the right guidance is in place.” But surely no-one is tuning into Midsomer Murders only to be shocked when they’re confronted with… a murder. That’s like eating a carrot cake and being flabbergasted to find carrot in it. Or, more accurately, buying a copy of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club and being asked for your ID – someone gets murdered in it don’t you know! It’s so silly, in fact, that one has to wonder what the aim of these trigger warnings really is.
At the risk of pigeonholing the average Midsomer fan, I’d imagine they’re exactly the sort of person who might find a trigger warning more offensive than they perhaps should. I would think the number of new, younger – and therefore apparently more sensitive and who would find such warnings useful – viewers flocking to ITVX to catch up on the 132 episodes (which include 423 deaths) is very low. Nevertheless, Midsomer is a show we watch for comfort and familiarity – not to be shocked outraged. A trigger warning does nothing other than make headlines and draw attention to a rather benign series that happens to have a new episode arriving next Tuesday…
Midsomer Murders is the meat and two veg of television – typically British, a bit boring and bland but it’ll do on a weeknight if there’s no other option. At its best, it leans into its inherent ridiculousness – when Martine McCutcheon was squashed by a giant wheel of cheese in 2013, for example, or when Hugh Dennis was locked in a room full of snakes in 2016, or when a meteorite smashed into Midsomer during a total eclipse and just happened to wipe out an astronomer in 2012.
Of course, not all crime dramas are made equal. A warning for the macabre gore of, say, Sky’s gratuitously violent Gangs of London (I shan’t go into the details of series two’s launderette scene, mostly because I couldn’t finish it), makes sense. I would like to know in advance that Happy Valley and The Fall have storylines that feature rape and violence against women. But will other cosy crime dramas – the unassuming Vera or Agatha Christie’s innocuous Marple (both also streaming on ITVX) – soon be subject to such misplaced alarmism? Surely not.
I’d hate for trigger warnings to disappear entirely – they’re a useful tool in navigating our ever-expanding cultural world. But we must be sensible in how we deploy them. Putting a “crime scene” warning on Midsomer Murders is not only nonsensical – it also stokes up an unnecessary argument that feeds directly into the meaningless culture wars designed to divide us. But a drama in which a murder victim is attached to a bullseye and bombarded with wine bottles via an antique catapult is perhaps one we should not take too seriously.
‘Midsomer Murders’ is streaming on ITVX.