Satan's Chimney

This feature length episode of TV Series, Jonathan Creek introduced Julia Sawalha as his new side-kick, Carla.

A murder mystery is being filmed in the Scottish Castle owned by the producer. It is a typical 'locked room' mystery in the best Agatha Christie tradition, but when the rest of the cast batter down the door, they find that the unfortunate leading lady has a real bullet hole in her breast to go with the fake one in her temple.

Needless to say, magician's assistant and amateur sleuth, Jonathan Creek is called in to investigate. Pretty soon there is another death to investigate with plenty of twists and turns before the whole truth is finally out.

A must-see for mystery fans and recommended for anyone else.

Why is this sort of mindless bilge made? Terrible plot full of inconsistencies and lack of continuity, dire acting to say the least from many of the cast including the lead. I could go on, but really there is no point.

I love J Creek but this one is disturbing. It's a good story, though too long, but it has a huge fundamental error.

The castle is in Scotland. There's a flashback to 1557. There's a reference to Queen Mary persecuting protestants - and the sinister torture chamber that gives the story its name.

Queen Mary who? Mary Tudor was Queen of England at the time, and persecuting protestants (though no more than Elizabeth persecuted catholics). Scotland was a completely different country.

Do they mean Mary Queen of SCots? She was a catholic but tolerant of protestants as they were a growing power and her son was a leading protestant.

Surely someone in the entire production team could have pointed out that it didn't make historic sense? Also - one character is described as a Lutheran and then as a right wing fundamentalist. I wouldn't have thought Lutherans were particularly prone to extremism.

When I think of my personal favourite episodes of Jonathan Creek, I think of Danse Macabre, and this one. It is a great story, packed with twists and turns, there is so much going on, but it's not too complicated or over the top, it's very easy to follow.

It's wonderfully clever, you'll do well of you're unable to untangle the mystery on first watch. At the end, all of the threads are neatly tied together, you're not left feeling cheated.

Notable for being the first appearance of Carla Borego, Sawalha is so different to the much missed Maddie.

Wonderful acting from the whole cast, Berkoff and Cowan in particular. It makes me so sad to see Mary Tamm, a wonderful, beautiful performer who died way too young, such a talented, beautiful, much missed actress.

Very clever, thoroughly enjoyable, 9/10.

I am a new convert to Jonathan Creek this is like only the 4 or 5th episode I've seen and this is the best so far, and one of the most overall great mysteries I've ever seen. Sure there are plot points which have been used before but a plethora of them. Magic, closed room murder, ancient historic rituals, movie along with a set group of suspects that all seem suspiciously obvious. Yet is the murder going to be obvious or come as a complete surprise? Seriously amazing!