TL;DR The new cast is interesting to a degree, and Brenda is a lot less annoying than she was in her debut in The Wayward Girls, but it's not quite up to par with previous seasons... yet.
Series 10 sees the reluctant return of Inspector Sullivan, whose character development from "The Sacrifice of Tantalus" and "The Tower of Lost Souls" seems to have been undone to enable his traditional role as Father Brown's adversary.
Brenda also returns, though fortunately her character is significantly less whiny, shrill and loud than in Season 9, and I think I can get used to her.
Joining the cast for the first time is Mrs. Devine as Parish Secretary. She is a bit of an airhead, and in my opinion no substitute for Mrs. McCarthy. She sort of feels more like a John Watson-type character, there to enable and support Father Brown without really contributing much on her own. I know its early and I will give her the benefit of the doubt for now, but Sorcha Cusack left an immediate impression from the get-go that Claudie Blakley does not quite recapture. The quality of the script does not do her many favors.
The plot of the episode is that a popular meadow in Kembleford is about to be developed into new housing. Brenda and Father Brown appear to be the only two residents in favor. Brenda wants it done for personal reasons, while Father Brown argues - shallowly on behalf of the writers - that change is a good thing. It feels very cynical, with very few arguments against the development aside from "new people bad" and "diversity bad", and the only argument for is "change good, change necessary, if you disagree then stay in the past". The show is so focused on telling you the new cast is good, that it does little to actually SHOW you.
In fact, it is SO focused on the "accept the new status quo" narrative, that the murder mystery seems to take a back seat to it.
Two obvious missed opportunities here were Goodfellow being the new Inspector, and/or keeping the new parish secretary introduced at the beginning of the episode. It would have been a nice shakeup to have the police and Father Brown regularly on the same side, with the naysayer/obstacle being the Parish secretary, who wants to keep Father Brown focused on his parochial duties and not on sleuthing. As I've said before. Ms. Devine has not sold me as a valuable character - she's a ditz who just follows Father Brown around basking in his awesomeness.
The show has had subpar episodes before, but this is the first one I was tempted to skip through.
I'm still going to give the show a chance, and I do hope it improves.
