Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries "Murder Under the Mistletoe" #2.13 (2013)

"Anyone dead yet?", 19 June 2017

To celebrate Christmas in July, Phryne, Dot, Mac, and Aunt Prudence travel to the Australian Alps for a vacation. They will be staying with family/friends in a mountain top villa. Another purpose for the trip is that Aunt Prudence intends to sell the family's interest in an abandoned gold mine and the trip will give her a chance to have the necessary paperwork signed. However, upon their arrival, they discover that one of the other guests has been killed. While everyone assumes it was a heart attack, Phryne is not so sure and suspects murder. Phryne is proved to be correct as one guest after another is murdered. Can Phryne get to the bottom of the murders before everyone is killed?

Murder Under the Mistletoe is Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries take on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. You know, a group of people is gathered together and one by one they're bumped off. What makes this episode memorable to me is the very creative murders used by the killer. They're all unique and "enjoyable". It's not every day that you see someone killed with a book, fishing line, and a statue. And, all the murders have the song The Twelve Days of Christmas as the unifying theme. The writing here is especially strong. Very nicely done. The backstory of the mine collapse and the minors who died as a result is a bit too intricate for a show that's less than 60 minutes in length, but the rest is just so much fun it was easy to look past this weakness. I suppose my biggest gripe is with some of the logic – and it's the same gripe I have with And Then There Were None. The killer has a very elaborate plan to murder everyone that requires a lot of set-up and a lot of moving about. How is it that no one notices anything? It's not logical.

I did learn a thing or two from Murder Under the Mistletoe. The biggest revelation for me is the existence of the Australian Alps. I don't know why, but I had no idea there was such a place. I'm not even sure I knew there was that much snow anywhere in Australia. You learn something new every day.

8/10