TV star appeared in 81 episodes of the murder mystery drama. Former Midsomer Murders star John Nettles has explained why he has no interest in watching the long-running detective show again. Nettles, 81, played Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby in the classic ITV crime drama, appearing on the show from 1997 to 2011 and starring in 81 episodes. “No, I don’t watch,” he told the paper. “I’ve seen every trope, every curiosity, every plot manoeuvre that belongs to the genre, over and over and over again.
![[Nettles, pictured receiving his OBE in 2009, starred in 81 episodes of 'Midsomer Murders']](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/02/19/9/12/GettyImages-106649806.jpg)
“I never want to see another actor pretending to be a dead body. It’s just too much. I’ve done it for so many years, for days and months at a time, 24/7, more or less.”. He described the process of appearing in shows like Midsomer Murders as “like building a wall. You build it very carefully. You don’t want to go back and watch other people building it”. Nettles also bemoaned the “awful” prevalence of violence against women in modern detective dramas, which he said is getting “worse and worse”.
![[Nettles on the set of 'Bergerac' with co-star Deborah Grant]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/02/19/9/21/GettyImages-1126446715.jpg)
“I tell you what is awful is the obligatory appearance of the tortured woman, the raped woman, the murdered woman,” he said. “Jesus, God. It’s very difficult to do that stuff and to use it as a bit of plot line. It gets worse and worse and worse. Part of the “appeal” of Midsomer Murders, he claimed, was the “extraordinary murders” that often made the crimes seem “totally unreal”.
After Nettles departed from Midsomer Murders, his character was replaced by Neil Dudgeon’s DCI John Barnaby, who was introduced as a younger cousin of Tom’s. Nettles has also given his blessing to a new reboot of Bergerac, starring Damien Molony in the title role, which will air on U later this month. However, he turned down a cameo in the new series, as he didn’t want to “muddy the waters”.
