User reviews

Starting watching this after being gifted a Britbox subscription, and the first three seasons are excellent. Well-thought out problems/plots, interesting, 3 dimensional characters with an odd but palpable chemistry between the main 2, great acting, humor, etc. Season 4, not only is the chemistry between the 2 leads odd, but the mysteries are further out there. What I liked about the first 3 seasons is that you could actually figure out the mysteries - you might not know the why, but you could sometimes figure out the how. Fair mysteries, where the viewer really was given most of the pertinent information. This starts to ebb as we hit season 4. I just watched the first episode of season 5, and yeah, so far, it's the worst. I guess it just jumped the shark.

I loved this series with Carolyn Quentin as Maddy. However, after she left, it simply wasn't as charming. Maddy provided comic relief and believability in her character as unique and "real folkes". I watched the entire series. I am American and we seldom see really Smart TV series. Unlike most UK Series that I watch repeatedly, (on my 5th viewing of New Tricks & Dalziel) for their character driven shows, JC sold out after Maddy was replaced with a different type of female lead. Maddy and Jonathan were quirky and unique. As the show progressed it became "a sell-out" to American type-casting, pretty blondes all in a row. The following UK Series illustrate the wonderful beauty of realistic, "non-blonde stereotyping" and/or "pretty people" characters that I love. You can't beat Warren Clarke as Andy Dalziel in Dalziel & Pascoe, truly rare and beautiful in my eyes. Alum Armstrong as Brian in New Tricks. New Tricks, an older mature character driven series gives us a real Blonde role model. (America has only come close in The Closer and Major Crimes). Blonde Amanda Redman as Sandra was not at all typical, she was a real tough, non apologetic, non whinning, non flirting, character. Endeavor, Morse, Lewis, Frost, George Gently and more...all of these intelligent series have flawed real people as characters as real people. Jonathan Creek lost that when Maddy left the show. Jonathan turned into an odd unrealistic sham of a character after that and the show suffered. I finished the series only in hope that Maddy would return and Jonathan would return to his original "nerdiness" Maddy made the series and required me to research her SWEET choices in life.

It's 2020, and I think this once great show has now officially come to an end, there seems to be no news of any new episodes.

At its best it was the best thing on TV, essential viewing which was bold, funny, creative and always managed to deliver the unexpected.

For me the best years were those with Caroline Quentin, the early years, the standard was amazingly high, although my favourite individual episode was Satan's Chimney, which featured Julia Sawalha. There are some wonderful guest performances, Maureen Lipman and Anette Crosbie stand out.

The shine did come off a bit in later years, but I always hope for more. One Foot in The Grave is my all time favourite sitcom, and you can see David Renwick's influence here, hilarious at times.

I'd love to see more. 9/10

For years now, I've heard my friends and relatives in the UK singing the praises of "Jonathan Creek". Unfortunately, I had never gotten the chance to experience the genius that is this show. But thanks to BBC-America, I can savor each and every mystery on Thursday afternoons (we get 2 episodes back-to-back!). I realize that, especially in the past 3 years, American television has consisted of a lot of very bad reality shows, and little else. Anything of substance is quickly taken off the air.. so that two more Real World/Survivor/Bachelor clones can take its place. There are millions of Americans who are starving for intelligent, thought-provoking entertainment. Of course Americans can handle "Jonathan Creek" -- why else would BBC-America continue to air it? This is an amazing show, and I truly wish our television big-wigs would realize that these kinds of shows work. Alan Davies is the ultimate anti-hero. Davies is gorgeous as the shy, rather nerdy, Jonathan. (I've developed a bit of a crush on him, to be honest :D) Maddy, played by the amazing Caroline Quentin, is the kind of role-model American women need: a tough-as-nails every-woman, who looks nothing like the malnourished actresses and models we see every day. The Americans who love this show are intelligent and witty, and we know good television when we see it.. and this is by far the best show I've had the pleasure of watching in a very long time.

I was hooked on this programme when it first came out and now I have it on DVD, I can see just how fantastic this series is. Its a completely different take on the usual crime solving programme and the solutions to puzzles are absolutely amazing. I was constantly baffled and thought it was very clever the way Jonathan worked out some of the clues. Alan Davies and Caroline Quentin were absolutely fantastic in their parts, and I thought perfect for their roles. When Julia Sawahla replaced Caroline, I was dubious at first but she too was great in her role, despite not being the ultimate replacement for Caroline. I did not think any of the mysteries were at all daft, just very very clever and the chemistry between Alan and Caroline was fantastic.

The guest stars were great in their roles, Annette Crosbie was particularly good in the House of Monkeys episode and it was a joy to see Bill Bailey pop up in the later series. I think, providing the mysteries keep coming, this programme can continue for maybe one or two series more.

I think Jonathan Creek is a wonderful show. The mysteries are excellent, much better than boring police dramas, and the charaterisation is superb. Obviously some episodes are better than others, but they are always good.

I can't really see many reasons for people not liking the show. It's funny and cerebral at the same time which keeps you interested, also the way the story builds up very slowly is clever. The clues are always there for you to see, but I rarely ever get the mysteries before Jonathan tells me at the end. Jonathan and Maddy are the best team, and hopefully the next series will feature mainly Jonathan and Maddy solving the mysteries.

Barring two or three sitcoms it is the best show ever made in the UK.

Words can't really describe how good this show is. In fact it is the only show made in the last ten years in England that would make you give up an entire Saturday night out for. Staying in to watch it would make it worthwhile.

It keeps you on the edge of your seat from the start, continually guessing and playing detective and how Renwick comes up with the a different storyline each week is as incredible as his talent to do the same with One Foot In The Grave.

To the people who were gripped by Sixth Sense and failed to guess the ending. Watch this and you'll see proper suspense. If you don't enjoy Jonathan Creek I really don't know what you expect from a TV programme. This show covers so many genres.

The first 18 episodes featuring Caroline Quentin as the lead are very well written, with lots of outstanding dialogue. Even though Jonathan Creek (Alan Davies) is the star, the show started out from the point of view of Maddy the crime writer (Caroline Quentin). She would contact Creek to help her out with solving mystery stories for her books.

The background for Creek was ingenious, as his job was to devise magic acts for his employer, a magician originally played by Anthony Head, then by Stuart Milligan for the next 16 episodes. Milligan was great at the nuances of a D-List playboy celebrity.

Davies and Quentin had a great comic chemistry together, and their lines were sometimes more awesomely funny because of how they reacted to each other. This is not a comedy show, but it has some great moments of humor and irony in the process of depicting two average people sorting out crimes in the midst of living their daily lives.

The first two seasons of this show, featuring Carolyn Quentin as Maddie Magellan, are just about perfect -- a combination of absurd humor and intriguing "impossible" crimes. The character of Adam Klaus as a oversexed, narcissistic Vegas style magician is also hilarious, even with a change in actors over two seasons. The solutions to the crimes are intriguing, and even when they are a bit over-the-top, they are still good entertainment. The not-quite romantic relationship between Creek and Magellan doesn't always make sense, but they have a quirky chemistry and their ups and downs make for some good comedy.

Seasons 3-5, without the Magellan character, are not quite as strong. There is a weird love-triangle in seasons 3-4 involving Jonathan Creek, an old flame, and her husband, who is not at all jealous of the two of them and admits to having been briefly gay. It's odd but not funny--just awkward. There are still some very funny moments, e.g. An episode in which a woman whose pet dog has died starts to date Jonathan Creek but goes for walks with him, plays fetch with him, and generally uses him as a dog-substitute.

In season 5, Creek gives up his frumpy magician assistant persona and becomes a suit-wearing executive in The City. He has an attractive but drearily respectable wife who detests his interest in magic and crime-solving. This new conformity doesn't fit his character at all and the marriage seems unlikely--it's hard to believe the two would get past a first date.. The crimes become increasingly farfetched, though there is still some amusing dialogue and wordplay.

As a whole, the series isn't without flaws--it did go downhill after Carolyn Quentin left, especially in the final season. But the first two seasons were so strong, they outweigh the weak points of what followed. Even the worst episodes of this series are better than most current viewing options..

Hooked up on the series quickly, very funny and love how they are thinking through the impossible crimes. However after Quentin left it's not as funny anymore.. She made Creek interesting. Otherwise I would have given a 10.

I loved the first three seasons when Caroline Quentin was his costar, I would have rated it 9! It was funny, there was a bit of sexual tension, just all around more imaginative and interesting. After she left the series he was given a now married ex-girlfriend as his sidekick and it was such a let down. Then he gained a ton of weight, got married and it slid even further downhill. Boring, unimaginative and hard to watch.

Having always had a fascination for detective mystery dramas, 'Jonathan Creek' has always been a very enjoyable series and for four seasons was a favourite.

There is a consensus that 'Jonathan Creek' wasn't the same post-Season 4 and when Julia Sawalha replaced Caroline Quentin. Thought that Sawalha did a very good job considering the big daunting shoes she had to fill, but it is difficult to not compare her to Quentin who was so amazing in her tenure and her chemistry with Alan Davies stronger. The post-Season 4 episodes were also a little daft, suspense-lacking and sometimes implausible and Jonathan wasn't as interesting or as likable, the way he was written like somebody else entirely.

At its best however, 'Jonathan Creek' was fantastic. Davies has never been better as Jonathan, and Quentin was amazing. The guest stars are uniformly excellent.

Visually, 'Jonathan Creek' is a stylish and atmospheric show, always beautifully photographed and with scenery that has a lot of atmosphere. The use of Saint Saens' "Danse Macabre" for the theme tune is a masterstroke and suits the mysterious nature of the show itself with its mix of magic and mystery.

Much of the script writing is taut and entertaining, while a vast majority of the story lines, when the show was in its prime years, are very clever with impossible crimes told in a way that challenges the viewer but never alienates or insults them. The characters are interesting and well drawn.

Overall, while post-Season 4 has not been as strong as before the show is still excellent because of how good it was in particularly Seasons 1-3. 9/10 Bethany Cox

The first two seasons - I think - were great until Maddy became a real pain in the neck with JC. He is still interesting and the story lines are good.

But you lost me with Maddy.

This has to be the best series made by the BBC for many years. The stories are well written, the acting by Alan Davies is great considering he's a comedian rather than a proper actor. The stories keep you on the edge of your seat and guessing till the very end.

The earlier episodes are the best with Caroline Quentin as his tough as nails sidekick. The more recent episodes with Julia Sawalha from ab-fab fame are still good but they have become more predictable and silly at times - with the writers seeming to run out of ideas and Davies seems to be getting bored with it all, which is a shame because theseries is one of the most watched shows in Britain and is a change from the usual mind-numbing Saturday night crap:Pop idol, Blind date, Lotto show, casualty and many others.

Please let this show continue for many years to come!

My rating for earlier episodes 1997-2000:-10/10

MY rating for recent episodes 2001-present :- 8.5/10

Overall 9/10

How I love this show, and how excited I am to find there are other programs in this series beyond the original four years. I have only come across the four years on rental disc but have just ordered the rest.

I was attracted originally to "Jonathan Creek" because of the description and put it on my lists of films to see. It is fabulous. Jonathan (Alan Davies) is, of course, the genius behind the illusions of a womanizing magician, Adam Klaus.

He teams up with Madeline Magellan (Carolyn Quentin), an investigative reporter, who originally is looking into a cold case. She sort of falls for Jonathan -- to be honest, I thought the two made a great team but were unsuited for one another, and I couldn't see bringing any suggestion of romance to the team.

The two work on lots of cases together, with Jonathan coming up with some ingenious ways these seemingly impossible, locked-room mysteries could have happened, as well as the way they really did.

In season 4, Quentin left the series and Jonathan winds up working with an old girlfriend (Julia Sawalha), to me almost totally unrecognizable as a blond, who is a television reporter, now married. Quentin was better as Jonathan's sidekick, whose personality is showier and more fun than what is written for Sawalha.

The mysteries are so clever, so fresh, so well done - I watch these episodes absolutely glued. Alan Davies underplays, showing the thoughtful, cerebral side of his character. He was a nice juxtaposition to Quentin, who plays a nosy, direct, and somewhat flamboyant woman.

I hope this series continues to do specials (as they have announced a new one with Joanna Lumley), but I also would like to see it come back, as Alan Davies has hinted it might. That would be incredibly fantastic.

David Renwick had demonstrated his talents for writing intricate, dark comedies with One Foot in the Grave and transferred those qualities to the murder mystery genre for Jonathan Creek.

Comedian Alan Davies had never done any acting prior his casting in the central role, but he made the perfect choice as the friendly yet cynical, calm yet occasionally incredulous, somewhat eccentric yet popular magician's creative genius with a talent for solving complex locked room killings and time shift slayings.

The show did decline in quality after the 2010 special 'The Grinning Man', but only the three episode fifth series is truly worth avoiding.

First 3 episodes were great. I loved the series. Boring with the last two characters of Adam and Joey disappeared and up popped a wife. Disappointed after that. I could only watch a couple season 5 episodes. The appeal and chemistry of characters vanished.

Well......I have just delved into this series n I forgot how brilliantly it is written n the stories are amazing n the plot is spotless. There is not as much tension n suspense as you would expect but the shear amazing way in which each episode unfolds is enough to keep you on your toes.

The acting is superb n the characters are charismatic n bounce off each other.

The endings are always superbly n smoothly executed.

I highly recommend this series especially if you like mysteries n great drama.

Over the years cops chasing the bad guy has been done to death. Jonathan Creek came in with an excellent new take on a whole genre bereft of ideas. Each episode starts off showing us impossible murders or other crimes, you have no idea how it has been done and neither do the police on the show. So they bring in this scruffy magician who operates almost like a modern Sherlock Holmes slowly piecing together slight clues leading to a grand reveal to conclude each episode.

The most notable thing about the show is the cast, every fan knows that the Caroline Quentin era is superior to the post Caroline Quentin one. Julia Sawalha to her credit keeps the series high standards going. After that the show does have quite a sharp decline, a handful of one of specials aren't too bad but the newest are very poor compared to the gold standard we were used to. The characters around Jonathan just aren't as good and the mysteries are just unimaginative.

In a roundabout way it tells you how great the original episodes are, it actually mattered to lose a part of it. I don't want to get too down about that, the episodes of Jonathan Creek that we got are very worth the investment of time. He is like Columbo in reverse, with Columbo you know how the crime is committed and watch as he figures it out. Here Jonathan Creek often has it figured out well ahead of everyone else and you are the one trying to work out how it was done.

Four very good series plus two Christmas specials. This for me was the best period of Jonathan Creek 1997-2003 as well as one of the best original British TV Shows ever. The stories often involve the locked room mystery, a person is murdered in a room with no way out and locked from the inside. Not all crimes have to involve s murder though, in one a painting vanishes and that's it, others just have someone witness something simply impossible like a dead person alive again or a vanishing alien.

Creek is an excellent character calm, logical, shy, reclusive, an expert on magic and illusions.

The characters he's surrounded by also work very well off him. Adam is everything he is not, loud, crass, narcissistic, showman like, a womaniser and egotistical.

Every season has some strong episodes. There's a nice blend of mystery, gothic horror, the surreal and comedy. He's also a little irritable and cranky too which works. I loved this show when I was growing up in the late 90s.

Not every episode is a 5 star one unfortunately. There's one that just makes no sense where the killer plans to murder a woman by getting her to wear a contraption which will kill her but leave not trace. He proceeds to lock her in a room though so the killer could not possibly have fled from without being caught, so why lock the door? It simply proves that she was alone when she died. Another one is Ghosts Forge which just leads to endless problems. Wasn't the crime scene full of Robin's finger prints, weren't there photos in the house of him? How did he get a driving licence/ bank account etc with a made-up name and identity? The final series S4 pokes fun at TV itself with reality TV and crime enactment shows in it's sights. Series 4 was also a darker one with corrupt police, pimps and serial killers making up some of the enemies Jonathan encounters.

The early seasons largely created crimes that took place in the real word, especially season 1, one crime takes place it seems in side Maddy's flat for instance. It was only the later specials where every single story seemed to have to take place in some big scary country mansion with some kind of silly legend to it. Generally I would say that the best episodes tend to have a solution which seems so clear and explanatory when it's presented. The very worst episodes just have a solution which just has endless problems or one where there's no way that Jonathan could ever have successfully made such a deduction from the clues presented to the audience.

The character of Jonathan Creek is an interesting one. His approach to solving the crime is often done from the perspective of his work in the magic business. He approaches each crime, especially one where the killer seemingly disappears as if in a puff of smoke. Jonathan is naturally already brilliant at making people believe they've seen something they hadn't quite seen. He's the hero, without needing to do things which are traditionally heroic like getting into car chases and gun fights. I don't think he can even drive actually.

Some of my favourite episodes include the Problem at Gallows Gate- how did a man who killed himself weeks ago show up to strangle a woman in her cottage? There's a nice gothic look to this one too. It also contains a killer you never saw coming. Danse Macabre is another classic, a great one to watch on Halloween, with a vanishing killer, Peter Davidson, lots of organ music and a really spooky feel to it. Black Canary was another strong one too with higher production values.

You do have some questions though about Jonathan. While he's on these cases, he's not at work. So is he doing all this on the weekend, does he take annual leave to do this work? Does he just work part time? If so how does he make ends meet? With Maddy it makes a little more sense as she makes her living as an investigative journalist. There is a great appeal though to Jonathan Creek using his mind rather than brawn to get the better of various criminals. Racing around big country mansions in the moonlight. There's also quite a few celebrity special guests in the series, such as Jack Dee and Peter Davison . Season 4 kept the formula of a hostile awkward relationship for Jonathan, even after the character of Maddy vanished. Jonathan often doesn't want to be involved in the investigation, Adam is also at this funniest too. This series is no Twilight Zone - nothing is left unexplained.

Season 5 is where things really go down hill. After some specials of dubious quality Jonathan by season 5 is now an marketing executive and married. S5, ep1 also breaks the formula by revealing to us both how a crime that others believe is impossible was committed and who did it all within the first 20 minutes. Now the audience is ahead of Jonathan Creek, which is where you never want to be in a mystery tv show like this. There's only 1 advantage to this which is to increase the comedy where Jonathan is paired with a younger enthusiastic detective who fancies himself as a bit of a 2009 Sherlock, he's even got the scarf, now the viewer can laugh along at his erroneous reasoning. Instead of creating 1 simple mystery per episode they instead stuff each episode with 2-3 mini mysteries which make little or no sense. You almost roll your eyes with some of this. There's also another problem, in the original series people would come to Jonathan with their problems. Now though he's packed all of that in, but he still keeps having these wacky adventures, this no longer makes any sense, real life doesn't involve all these crimes happening everyday in a tiny little village where they now are. Also is he supposed to be a high flying London marketing executive or a country dweller, the series wants to have it both ways and it doesn't work. Yes the move to HD is a welcome addition but the writing is now awful. Also Jonathan has gone from a character who would once roll his eyes and shrug at the madness of modern life to a character who will not actively fight and argue with everyone about every petty little thing. He's become Victor Meldory from One Foot in the Grave. The lottery number episode is terrible, it takes so long for the mystery to be introduced, about 25 minutes I think, earlier episodes would do it within 5-10 minutes at most. There's no comic foil either for Jonathan now, no co-investigator to rub him up the wrong way. Jonathan Creek before was never an action star, he didn't even drive, there were no car chases, big fights, he didn't yell and scream, and throw things around the room. Now though it's lost all of that restraint. He was always a man who noticed how tiny details explained so much, like how a plug doesn't quite reach a socket or how 2 speakers seem to have been switched and what that tells us. Also the realism of the early seasons have also vanished, everyone now lives in a house with a front garden the size of a football pitch.... Season 5 like others is also very middleclass, populated by vicars, businessmen, village committees, artists and so on.

Jonathan Creek is an excellent British Television series - all about mystery and the why's and how's. It was written by the great, David Renwick, who wrote One Foot in the Grave and like that he manages to make unlikely scenarios very believable! Full of comedy - this is true classic Renwick humour and true classic British humour.

Creek is a laid back unassuming man, who is the clever mind behind a magician's illusions. His friend, Maddie is an investigative journalist who seems to walk into mysteries, persuading Creek to work it out for her. The part of Jonathan Creek is played by the well known stand up comedian, Alan Davies, who can be seen in the quiz show QI and Maddie is played by another well know comedian, Caroline Quentin. This makes very clever TV with some very clever plots and mysteries.

Well worth watching this programme on one of the repeat channels or buying on DVD -you'll love it.

Only just watching this now on Netflix. Didn't see it first time round on the BBC. The first couple of episode were ok-ish, but very quickly the series has descended into over-acted, absurdity. I've got to give the show credit for finding some wonderful locations, but really when the locations are the best thing about a program that is hardly a recommendation. I've reached the point where I can't bear to watch any more. The Maggie character (Caroline Quentin) is so awful I'd be quite happy for her to become the victim of a gruesome murder. What it most reminds me of is TV dramas of the 1960s with very theatrical style of acting. Alan Davies doesn't fall into this style, to his credit, but this just emphasizes the caricatures that everyone else is playing. It's obvious from many reviews that it is a program with an appeal to some, but definitely not to me.