Some spoliers ahead (killer not revealed)
Previous episodes this series have been pretty good. This episode was poor. The writer clearly wanted to make a point about female represention but the women presented in this episode, except Lu and Viola, were truly awful people. Indeed, they were such unpleasant caricatures one wonders if that wasn't the writer's intension, to lampoon women's groups. But I doubt that.
I know Shakespeare and Hathaway is a cozy mystery in which murder and kidnapping are treated quite lightly, as intriguing mysteries to be solved rather than harrowing crimes, but the callousness shown towards the victims was silly and off-putting.
The women around the murder victim showed not the slightest regret that a man had lost his life but used his death frivolously for publicity. They kidnap and torture another man; threatened to kidnap him again and tattoo him if he doesn't give into their demands. All this is continuously justified by everyone as normal, reasonable behaviour. Frank and Lu are even asking if the killer is feeling OK and joking around with them at the end of the programme. The killer actually gets the last word and it's a point about statues of female characters in Stratford-upon-Avon as if, interesting point though it is, that's the real tragedy and not murder.
And that's where the problem lies. Cozy mysteries are not good vehicles for serious messages. You end up with the loss of human life presented as trivial compared to the message with those delivering the message appearing callous and fanatical as a result. And this is exactly how the women's group are presented.
Josie Lawrence's Dr. Middleton chases Frank and Sir Tim around with swords, demanding to know why concern for a missing man is something that ought to bother her ("If I knew where he was why would I tell you?") and Jasra Hatoum, the museum's Head of Antiquities, shows no concern over two people she worked closely with being kidnapped and tortured in one case and murdered in the other but does show concern over a Shakespeare exhibition being deemed more important than one on the suffragettes.
Curiously, the supposedly regressive administration, opposed by the Herstorians, are about as progressive as you can get with a Muslim woman as Head of Antiquities and a homosexual man of colour as curator. Their only crime, that justified the callousness towards their suffering, was putting on a Shakespeare exhibition in a museum in Startford-upon-Avon!
Josie Lawrence hams it up playing Dr. Middleton as a kind of pantomine villian but it is strongly suggested throughout the show that, politically, she's in the right. There is no criticism of her whatsoever; or of the Herstorians. To avoid such criticism there can be no sympathy for the victims. When a desperately worried Sir Tim reports Lucian missing, Sebastian is more concerned with him showing the Herstorians proper respect. After Tim is murdered instead of the team feeling compelled to solve the crime and bring the killer to justice they just shrug their shoulders in indifference and invoice the widow.
The end result is that Frank, Lu and Sebastian act like they don't really care.
The issue of female represenation was thrust into the foreground but, due to the demands of the format, those demanding greater representation were portrayed as nasty, cartoonish and silly.
9 out of 13 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
