As is typical to Midsomer Murders, there isn't much of an overarching storyline across these two series. The only part of the Barnaby life that really changes this in this set is that Cully (Laura Howard), Tom (John Nettles) and Joyce (Jane Wymark)'s daughter, gets engaged to her boyfriend in "Death in a Chocolate Box," the Series 10 finale, and then married in "Blood Wedding," the Series 11 premiere.
The collection starts off with "Dance of the Dead" where Barnaby and DS Jones (Jason Hughes) investigate an apparent suicide where a young man keeps his car running in a closed garage, but there were far more intriguing mysteries in this collection.
One early episode has a washed-up band that Barnaby once loved coming to town for a music festival, only to have their lead singer die on stage, but was she the intended target? Another episode in the first half of Series 10 includes a woman coming to town to visit her estranged uncle, only to have him killed the night before she shows up. What's odd is that every time the investigators turn a corner, one of the people close to the deceased produces a will that claims they will get the old man's entire fortune.
The rest of Series 10 includes an episode where Barnaby is taken off of an investigation when the clues start to point to him as a possible suspect. This particular mystery revolves around a camera shop and photo festival that seems to have a real beef with the digital-movement. They even refuse to put up a website.
In another episode, a murder happens on the set of a filming of The Scarlet Pimpernel and concludes in the previously mentioned "Death in a Chocolate Box" where a murder happens at a halfway house run by some of Barnaby's former colleagues.
Season 11 opens with Cully's wedding, but that is a side story to the episode's mystery involving a murdered Maid of Honor. Don't worry though, it's not one of Cully's. Another episode in Series 11 involves a family feud that stretches back to World War I and the execution of one of the family members by the other for a claim of cowardice. The investigation gets particularly tricky since one family is very well off, and the other contains the Mayor of Causton.
One particularly interesting mystery in this collection is "Left for Dead" where Jones reconnects with some old friends as a wedding approaches, only to have some of the wedding party start showing up murdered. What's worse, it seems there is some secret shared by the dying people and if Jones and Barnaby can't work out exactly what it is, there might not even be a bride and groom to have the wedding. While I enjoyed this episode, working out exactly what happened when everything is revealed required a bit of extra thought on my end. The whole situation is pretty complex and could have used a scene explaining the events with than the one that was filmed.
Both Series 11 and the Midsomer Murders: Mayhem & Mystery Files collection concludes with one episode involving the death of magician that might be connected to witchcraft and one that has Barnaby and Jones getting to cut a team-building exercise early in order to investigate an explosion at a local military base.
The final episode involves a haunted forest where people see lights and hear moaning all the time. When people start disappearing, the public brings in a psychic to try and rid the woods of the murdered monks that died during the English Reformation. The psychic soon discovers one of the missing bodies and when another of the missing people are found, but obviously driven crazy, the belief in the ghosts grows even stronger. Can Barnaby not only uncover exactly what is going on here, but disprove the haunting of Monks Barton?
Since this collection is a repackaging of previously released discs, followers of the series shouldn't expect more than what was originally provided. This includes a commentary on the episode "The Magician's Nephew," Production Notes, Cast Filmographies and some Photo Galleries. Basically, the same stuff the DVD releases always provide. On a similar note, I wouldn't recommend buying this collection if you happen to have one of the four sets that makes up Midsomer Murders: Mayhem & Mystery Files, but if you happen to have a hole in your collection where this 25-disc set belongs, then this is a nice package to fill it.
