The Madame Blanc Mysteries - Season 2, Episode 4 - January 19, 2023

I love how they snuck a little "Window Cleaner" reference into this one, by having Robin's character Jeremy unload window washing tools for use in cleaning up the new home he and his wife just bought, ha!
Anyway, this episode is happily very Jeremy heavy so that makes for a lot of photos for my blog...

He and his wife Judith have bought a large country estate. I thought they already owned one? But anyway, for some reason they did and were going to use it for some kind of party and had to get it ready fast. Only, the first day they're there, they hear a gunshot and find the former owner dead in one of the rooms.

The police are called and they are told they have to leave for a few days.

Jean White is then called in to solve the mystery, so she arrives with her sidekick Dom to investigate. Now, Jeremy and Judith are NOT pleased with this at all because, like I said, they need to get the place ready for the party ASAP.

So... since Dom has access to the house, Jeremy has an idea...

Dom, needing money badly, is talked into taking measurements of each room while he's in the house so Jeremy and Judith can order all new furnishings or draperies or something. (Not something that can actually be DONE in just two weeks, in my experience!)

So, as for the mystery Jean is working on, she gets it solved in no time, the culprit was very predictable as there just weren't that many characters in this episode to work with. However, she finds out what Dom did when Jeremy lets it slip how Dom had saved the day for them.

So now Jean is mad at Dom and that's how the episode is left hanging. But all is well with our favorite couple, so I say that wraps up another great episode!

The Madame Blanc Mysteries - Season 2, Episode 3 - January 12, 2023

This episode finds the characters at a funeral for a local actress who had been one of the theater committee's members. Now, Robin's Jeremy just happens to be head of the group and is looking to replace her quickly, as they'll lose the right to use the historic theater without the required number of committee members.

The actress's adult daughter is in town for the funeral and winds up finding out a family secret...that she was NOT the daughter of this actress, but instead the actress's sister, who had been murdered in that very theater back in 1974! So...she gets Jean White on the case!

Jean figures out that her mom had been killed because of a priceless gift given to her by her daughter's real dad, a foreign dignitary, which she had hidden somewhere in the theater. They decide the best way to get access to all areas is for the daughter to take her mother's place on the theater committee.

But murder happens again before the episode is through... a poor cleaning guy who Jeremy had bribed to clean the room where the crime had taken place so long ago.....

But, before you know it, Jean has all the loose ends tied up neatly and the killer found and the gift discovered in plain sight.

So, another fun little mystery, all wrapped up!

The Madame Blanc Mysteries - Season 2, Episode 2 - January 5, 2023

Nice that this one starts right off with the focus on Robin's Jeremy character! He's out celebrating with his mates and has way too much to drink.

So, because he ignores his wife Judith's calls, she tells him not to come home and to sleep on their boat that night instead. So he does.

...and wakes up to find a dead body on the deck!

So then he must go to the police, and eventually Jean White gets in on figuring out the mystery. Judith has her suspicions about it being Jeremy's lover and he had killed her! Don't know where THAT came from, but it was kind of funny.
One clue I caught on to right away was the "Afro comb" the victim was found with. Now, I do remember these "combs" being used a lot in the 70s by people with Afros. BUT my family had a whole set of antique cutlery with one of these "combs" among it. I looked it up once and found they are really cake slicers for angel food cake. And, on the show there just happened to be some chefs visiting the town to promote a cookbook. So, I put things together right away, before Jean did!

The Madame Blanc Mysteries - Season 2, Episode 1: "Christmas in Sainte Victoire" - Dec 22, 2022

Yay! Another season of this fun show!

I last watched this show on the Acorn channel, but have since let my subscription expire. BUT I recently found out that our public library system gives us access to a couple streaming channels. One of them, Hoopla, carries this show! What luck!

Jean White is back in this French village and it is Christmastime. Right away the wife of her friend, the Inspecteur André Caron; chief of local police is murdered and he is the only suspect. So she is on the case!

Robin makes an appearance as Santa Claus at the village's Christmas party. He and his wife are adorable in every scene they're in. I'm really enjoying when they're onscreen. They didn't really have anything to do with the main storyline and thus don't get much to do, but hopefully that will improve in later episodes!

C. B. Strike: Season 4: "Troubled Blood" episode 4 - 2023

It's been over a year since I posted the last entry??? How is this possible???

I've been a fan of this show since the beginning, it's on HBOmax here in the U.S. and it is so interesting. So I was happy to see Robin was going to have a guest starring role in an episode of the latest season, "Troubled Blood"! Too bad I had to wait until the 4th and final episode to see him, though.

As this is a murdery mystery show, investigators C.B. Strike and Robin Ellacot are hired by a woman to find her mother, Dr. Margot Bamborough, who is presumed dead after having disappeared in 1974 when the woman was still a child. After lots of twists and turns that will keep you guessing, we are finally led to Robin's character of Steve Douthwaite, aka Steve Jacks, aka Steve Diamond. He had been a patient of Margot's when he was seeing her for some weird stomach ailments he had been experiencing. Since then, all his aliases and moving around and switching jobs led the detectives to suspect he had something to do with her disappearance and try to track him down, finally finding him running a hotel in a small town with his wife, who knows nothing about his past.

I found it amusing as a Robin fan that one of the jobs he had in the past was a worker at a Holiday Camp!

There were lots of flashbacks of Steve as a young man in the '70s, but the guy who played him did not look like Robin at all and I feel they could have done a lot better choosing someone with similar hair and features.

Robin played the role very earnestly and sympathetically. A departure from his usually jokey demeanor and he did a good job at it.

Anyway, I won't give anything away, since I think the identity of the killer was very unpredictable and you will enjoy finding out for yourself how they wrapped up the case!

Madame Blanc Mysteries: Episode 6 - 2021

For some insane reason, Robin is not in episodes 4 or 5! So....skipping my commentary of those here and going right to the finale of the season. I do hope there'll be a season 2!

Jean White has sold her house in the village and is ready to leave for England. To make it all the more upsetting, the slight hint of romance between her and Dom has been squashed because his wife, who had left him two years prior, is back and appears to want to pick up where she left off. Robin-as-Jeremy is shown at the bar with his wife, happily planning Jean's going-away party.

The loose ends of the season get wrapped up by the end...who killed her husband and why...and now is Jean's life in danger? ...and why is Dom's wife REALLY back? You'll have to watch to find out!

Good job, Robin! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for another season of you in this!

Madame Blanc Mysteries: Episode 3 - 2021

Episode 3 finds Jeremy and Judith holding an 80s-themed 35th anniversary party! Complete with a poster of their wedding day showing a younger Robin, which I thought was a cute touch:

But, wouldn't you know, there's a murder at the celebration - I won't say who - and thankfully Jean White is soon on the case!

Robin steals every scene he's in, he's adorable in this episode, playing so very oblivious, and the looks his wife gives him are just priceless!

Madame Blanc Mysteries: Episode 2 - 2021

I'm really getting into this show! Fun and simple to follow. This episode finds Jean White helping a woman in town track down information about her birth family, who were separated during WW2, leaving her with just a few antique items to trace. One clue leads her to the grounds of Jeremy (Robin)'s place. His story is revealed more in this episode. His family had been the owners of a large chateau since his grandfather's day, and he and his wife live there now and are quite wealthy. He happily allows Jean and Dom (Steve Edge) to search the grounds, where they find something quite startling (hehe).

Side story is a TV show producer interviewing couples in the village for a new reality show and everyone, including Jeremy and wife, are excited about being the couple chosen. Sue Holderness plays wife Judith and is pretty funny with her over-the-top behavior and Robin does great playing her amiable husband. Some of his expressions are hilarious!

Last Train to Christmas - 2021

Can you believe my luck lately? Another new Robin movie! Shown in the UK this Christmas season, but by Christmas Eve I found it on YouTube here in the US! Truly is a Christmas miracle! 😄

Looked low-budget, but Husband and I actually really enjoyed it. I'm always a fan of time travel movies, and this was a clever one...kept the characters on a train, but each car would take the main character back and forth through his life by a span of 10 years. All the way back to 1945, and then up to what I guess was 2015 at the end. Telling his story and him trying to figure out how to make the change that will fix the problem that gets revealed. So good! Robin played the director of an ad the main character was making on the train in 1985, and played his role with his usual exuberance.

Look it up before it gets taken off! And enjoy!

Madame Blanc Mysteries: Episode 1 - 2021

Oddly enough, right after I posted a few days ago, I watched yet another new thing Robin is in! I saw that the Acorn streaming channel was offering a 99 cent a month deal for 3 months subscription with the code "HappyHoliday". And they carry "The Madame Blanc Mysteries" which I've been reading about on Twitter. (Updated update: just found out today that DailyMotion also has it, but for free. Oh well, I wanted to check out Acorn anyway...)

I watched the first episode last night. It's okay, an interesting enough British murder mystery. There's this British antique dealer woman, Jean White, whose husband is killed in a car accident while buying antiques in France (filmed in Gozo, though!) She goes to the village to investigate and gets involved with the locals while doing so. Steve Edge plays the local British handyman who helps her out. I recognized him from a few other things he's been in that I've watched lately, including a really interesting series called "Starlings" which unfortunately only lasted a couple seasons. I like him. Robin really only (so far) has a small role as another British local, "Jeremy Lloyd James" who makes a couple of appearances with his...wife? I think. Sorry, too lazy to go back and re-watch to see how they are first introduced.

After watching it I was thinking to myself, "I wonder why they call it the 'Madame Blanc Mysteries'? Who is Madame Blanc?" I was assuming beforehand she was going to be a French investigator who went around solving crimes. Then I put two and two together and realized Mrs. White in French would be Madame Blanc, ha ha. Takes me awhile! But she only had her own mystery to solve. Looking forward to seeing if she's going to give up antique dealing for mystery solving!