Shut case to be reopened

John Wood, Nadine Garner and Craig McLachlan star in the final Doctor Blake Mysteries for the ABC.

Doctor Blake Mysteries, ABC iview.
After five years, five series and 37 episodes the ABC’s Doctor Blake Mysteries finally finished up at the weekend – tying up (as final episodes do) all the loose ends.
But not quite in this case.
In this case enough was left open for new telemovies but just not on the ABC with the announcement that Channel Seven had given the much-loved program a reprieve.
But it’s still an end of an era and, fittingly, it delves into Blake’s history as well as securing his future.
There’s also a couple of weddings and a funeral and, because this is Doctor Blake, three murders all crammed into an hour and a half.
The movie length ep sees Dr Blake (Craig McLachlan), engaged to his long-standing housekeeper Jean (Nadine Garner) and planning a wedding but when another wedding ends in disaster and his long-estranged Aunt asks him to try and find her grand-daughter things start to go pear-shape.
Without giving too much away there’s a moment in the episode where an entirely different ending was possible (if the show hadn’t been renewed) but, thank goodness for its legions of loyal fans, it didn’t pan out that way.
In the end this was another cracker of an episode with lots of twists, turns, death and mayhem (and a high-speed chase with vehicles of the time) in Ballarat giving more than enough reasons why Doctor Blake needed to survive to sleuth another murder.
– Tania Phillips