Sidney and Geordie save the day when mistress number two almost pushes mistress number one (who was the preferred mistress) in front of the 3pm express to London, or some equally fast train.
And what Sydney needs to know is that the mousy secretary was the deceased’s second mistress, who off’ed her boss when he tried to end their relationship so he could run away with the first mistress. But eventually, he finds himself up against evidence and stonewalling that could stall his efforts.įinally, Sydney feels impelled to disobey some rules of Christian living in the course of his investigation, by “borrowing” the dead man’s calendar and making some pointed insinuations in front of some possibly homicidal people, in order to find out what he needs to know. People accept that he’s trying to offer them counseling, and few suspect him of ulterior motives. Sidney soon finds himself using his clerical privilege to get extremely nosy with this varied crew about “the human heart” and also the human killer impulse. There are so many suspects! The sexy widow, the rival solicitor, the mistress herself. Keating blows him off, urging him to get back to, erm, Vicaring and such.īut Sidney, making the first of repeated urgent bicycling trips through town to alert Geordie of developments, is undaunted. He makes the first of several attempts at convincing Inspector Geordie Keating (Robson Green) that there’s foul play afoot. They were planning to run away together, you see! And given that people trust Sidney, couldn’t he just ask around a little bit?
Then, when a “special friend” of the dead man insists, through tears, that the suicide was staged and she’s sure it was murder, the plot thickens. Sydney’s sermon at the man’s funeral is gentle, assuring the family of the deceased, including his very attractive German widow, that their friend and relative still has a chance at salvation. The first of said sordid doings is a suicide of a solicitor, whose funeral brings gossip and scorn to the vicarage. In fact, they aren’t destined to be, in ways that pain Sydney considerably (think: British class rigidity!) and drive him right to the pub, and the bottle, and thankfully for us, investigating the sordid doings of his parishioners. When he puts his clerical robes on, Sydney suddenly assumes gravity, although his delightfully cross landlady is forever scolding him for his lack of proper mien.Īnd later, we learn that Amanda isn’t quite his girlfriend after all. But nothing is as it seems, even in the show’s set-ups. Sydney Chambers (James Norton), our hero, seems in the opening shot like a handsome, carefree flirt, swinging into rivers with his lady-friend -Amanda. Set in a 1950s suburb of Cambridge, Granchester has it all, and I think I can safely say for fans of the genre, the more you watch this show, the more you’ll be enchanted.Įpisode 1 slowly introduces us to the cast of characters. Last but not least, we need the tortured sleuths (Miss Marple excepted) who try to untangle other people’s threads while theirs remain hopelessly knotted. The suicide in a small town that ends up being a murder the stolen jewelry at fancy party at a “great house ” the dysfunctional and estranged family relationships under our noses that explode into violence. And as soon as the opening credits began to roll on the first episode, showing a low riverside that was unmistakably English, my viewing companion and I turned to each other and at the same time said, “I love it already.”įamiliar elements aren’t necessarily a bad thing, particularly when it comes to “cozy mysteries,” which succeed when they reassemble a set of pleasing tropes in inventive new ways. To be sure, it sounded like it simply reproduced the elements of every other British mystery I’ve read or watched on PBS.
#Impulse season 1 plot summary series#
When I heard that Grantchester, PBS’ new detective series that premiered last night, was a mystery featuring a “young Vicar and a gruff inspector” in a small town outside Cambridge, I laughed out loud.