Have loved 'Taggart' (another show gotten into during my teenage years) for a long time, although the more deliberate and even grittier Taggart and Jardine periods to me are superior to Burke's. Although it was actually through watching the late afternoon reruns of the Burke period episodes (starting from "Compensation" right up to when the episodes became shorter, too short in my mind) at one point that got me hooked, the Taggart and Jardine episodes were actually seen a lot later.
'Taggart' was really running out of ideas by this point, and one can see signs of that in "A Study in Murder". It is an episode that started off very strongly and with a lot of promise and the personal life subplot was handled better than expected, and then ran out of gas too early and became completely unremarkable and forgettable. Is "A Study in Murder" terrible? No. Is it one of the worst episodes of 'Taggart'? Absolutely not, it's certainly not "Genesis" level. But it left me with mixed feelings on first watch and still does.
"A Study in Murder" does have good things. It is typically slick-looking and it is good that the photography doesn't try to do too much stylistically, without being too clean looking. The grit has definitely not gone. The theme song is still memorable and has an appealing nostalgic vibe, as well as well suited to the tone of the show. The acting from all is good, with all four regulars faring strongly and the supporting cast doing nicely despite being in quite standard roles.
Complete with a nice chemistry that is humorous in parts and intense in others. The episode starts off very promisingly as said, with one of the show's most gruesome murder methods that left a heart in the mouth sensation and intrigue. That is definitely the most memorable the episode ever got. Was surprised by Stuart's subplot which was quite touching and wasn't as soap operatic as it could easily have been.
While the case starts off very well, it sadly becomes a conventional stringing along of old ideas with little variation. Was not that surprised by the identity of the killer at all and the whole denouement in fact lacked tension and was near-completely easily guessable not too far in apart from the motive. It made the episode feel very tired and bland as a result, and tired and bland are not good adjectives to describe one of the grittiest shows of its kind when in its prime.
Despite some very interesting ideas here in "A Study in Murder", there was potential for more being done with them. The script has moments of levity and grit, but too many times it's fairly by the numbers. The music overall would have been perfect in the 80s and early 90s but by this point it was sounding ten plus years out of date, on top of that the music is not always very well placed.
Overall, rather mixed on this. 5/10.