ITV drama is brought to you in association with scepticism

Last night saw the beginning of the last series of Midsomer Murders on ITV.

And though I've been something of a regular viewer - it's very easy to sit through - I think they're right to pull the plug. It really is showing its age.

There are far too many flaws in the plot and increasingly I find myself saying to SWMBO "Why the hell doesn't he just (insert whatever he should doing here)?"

And, even if you put aside the natural scepticism which would make you wonder how there are possibly any residents left in the small county of Midsomer, one is always faced with the inevitability that DI Tom Barnaby's wife, Joyce, and daughter, Cully, will be involved with the victims and the perpetrator somehow.

This inevitability seems to follow around John Nettles - who has played Barnaby for 12 years - as the same scenario was present in Bergerac, which ran from 1981-1991. Without fail, when a crime was committed you needed to simply find out who was staying with Jim's father-in-law, Charlie Hungerford, or who he'd just gone into business with. And there was the murderer / fraudster / drug dealer.

Getting a detective on the case was uneccessary. All that was needed was to have somebody monitoring Charlie's diary and you could stop a crime before it was committed.

If I lived in Midsomer the last thing I would do would be to attend a fete / choir / cycle ride / charity event involving either of the female Barnabys for it was certain somebody would meet an untimely end and I would end up either as a suspect or a mute bystander encouraged to smile inanely when somebody purporting to be a neighbour hove into view.

One would experience the same emotions if one had saved up to have the holiday of a lifetime only to find, when having high tea in the foyer of the luxury hotel, Hercules Poirot or Miss Marple checking in at reception.

You just know everything's about to go Pete Tong.