The Grinning Man (Jonathan Creek)

Set five years after the previous episode, "Gorgons Wood", "The Grinning Man" begins by introducing the Gothic mansion Metropolis. Since 1938, a number of visitors staying overnight in the mansion's attic "Nightmare Room" have disappeared without a trace. Originally owned by a spiritualist, the mansion is now the property of his grandson, stage magician Lance Gessler (Nicholas Boulton). Gessler lives with his mother, Constance (Judy Parfitt), his partner Elodie (Jenna Harrison) and their groundskeeper, Glenn (Ciarán McMenamin). They offer shelter to paranormal investigator Joey Ross and her friend Mina (Naomi Bentley) when the two are caught in a storm. Mina elects to sleep in the Nightmare Room and has vanished by morning. Constance calls in sleuth Jonathan Creek to investigate Mina's disappearance. Jonathan has recently begun a relationship with an old acquaintance, Nicola (Katherine Parkinson), who is opposed to his investigative career, believing it to be too dangerous an occupation. Jonathan is still in the employment of the magician Adam Klaus, whose television series is receiving heavy criticism from viewers. To Jonathan's bemusement, Klaus invests in the 3D pornography industry and begins dating the porn actress Candy Mountains (Jemma Walker). Jonathan inspects the attic room and the bedroom directly beneath it, but finds nothing suspicious, save for a small vent in the canopy of the room's four-poster bed, which is opened when pressure is put on the mattress, releasing dead flies. Investigating events at Metropolis, Jonathan deduces that Gessler's grandfather was a Nazi sympathiser, who laid a trap in the attic room to kill one of his enemies without arousing suspicion, which has subsequently killed anyone else who stayed in that room. Jonathan and Joey spend the night in the room, but uncover nothing. The next morning, when trying to figure out what they had done differently to all the victims, Jonathan comes to the realisation that they would have all taken a bath in the adjoining bathroom. Upon realising the secret behind the disappearances, Jonathan races back up to the attic with Glenn. Unfortunately, Joey had already climbed into the bath, which has descended and released her into a water tank below the room, where the corpses of previous victims (including her friend Mina) remain, drowned and decomposing. The bath has not yet returned to its position so Jonathan and Glenn are able to rescue her. Confronting Constance, Jonathan explains that the room the disappearances occurred in was not the real attic room, but in fact located in a flat-roofed tower next to the real attic which had slanted ceilings built in to disguise it as the attic in order to stop people suspecting any traps beneath it. The vent in the canopy was designed to leak an ectoplasmic fluid on the first victim to ensure they would use the bath. During the investigation, Gessler's partner, Elodie, is kidnapped. Joey follows Gessler from his stage show one night and observes him slashing Elodie's throat. She, Jonathan and Nicola later discover Elodie's dead body, but when they return with policemen, the corpse has been switched for a prop dummy. Glenn reveals that he and Elodie were in love and had recently married in secret. He suspects that Gessler may have murdered Elodie out of jealousy after she confessed their marriage to him. The police, however, receive a video of Elodie walking through a park the morning after she was supposedly murdered, with the day's newspaper in plain view for validation. Jonathan realizes that Gessler had manipulated Delia Gunning (Julia Ford), the editor of the local newspaper, into printing a fake copy a week in advance. By making the video before killing Elodie, he could deflect suspicion from himself, leading the police to believe that she had faked her own death and run away. Gessler ensured the front page's authenticity by having Delia create the day's headline herself, releasing a briefcase full of bees in the middle of a local council meeting. Jonathan's suspicions became aroused as the following story about the construction of a motorway through six villages would have been far more engaging as a front-pager. Jonathan and Joey arrive at Delia's home just in time to save her from being murdered by Gessler, who later kills himself by gassing himself in his car. The "Grinning Man" of the title is the subject of a painting, reputedly by Hieronymous Bosch, which hangs in the attic Nightmare Room. Once the episode's mysteries are resolved, Constance confesses that she rescued the painting from a burning room decades previously, leaving an elderly uncle to die as she did so. She has Glenn assist her in burning the painting in Metropolis' grounds. The episode ends with Jonathan, Joey and Adam arriving at a restaurant to celebrate with their significant others. Adam discovers that he has been conned by Candy and will not be receiving any return on his pornography investment. Joey receives a call from her partner, Alec (Adam James), who reveals that he is in Miami with Nicola and the two are now seeing one another. As the maître d' (Graham Vanas) arrives to lead them to their private booth, Jonathan jests; "Three for the Nightmare Room". ==Production==

David Renwick made the decision to revive Jonathan Creek for a Christmas special as a means of "deferring retirement". He considered the alternative of developing an entirely new series to be too lengthy a process, He described the process of formulating a plot for the episode as an "agony" and a "torment", revealing that he had stopped writing the show in 2004 partly due to a lack of ideas. "The Grinning Man" was commissioned by Jane Tranter, Controller of BBC Fiction, with Lucy Lumsden, Controller of Comedy Commissioning, stating that the station was "delighted to have Jonathan Creek back on BBC One". Renwick was prepared for a negative reaction to the show's revival, describing how: "People say, Oh Jonathan Creek's coming back. Fantastic.' And then they watch it and go: 'God, what a mistake.' Which is what happened with One Foot in the Grave. So I tend to expect the worst." Renwick suggested that they include Davies' weight gain in the plot, presenting the character as having "gone to seed". Davies grew his hair out again for the role, while Sawalha temporarily retired from acting in 2004, having become so disillusioned that she was "dragging [her]self out of bed" by the end of the show's fourth series in order to film episodes. Davies explained that Renwick had always believed Jonathan needed a sidekick character, and that: "You can't really have Jonathan Creek without his sounding board when all the stuff is going on in his mind. In a novel you can have an interior monologue when a leading character is working out what's going on, but for a film or television you have to have Dr Watson for Sherlock Holmes, it's somebody for Holmes to explain it to." The actress found accustoming herself to "detective talk" the hardest part of the role, explaining: "You slow down, and then speed up at the end. I kept watching Alan and going, 'I can’t do this figuring out talk.' But I learned from the master." Smith enjoyed the challenge the role presented, stating: "He's [Renwick] written this feisty little northern character, and I am really honoured because he's such a great writer. I have always played chavs and slappers so I wasn't used to being an intelligent young girl." Renwick has stated that the production of any further Jonathan Creek specials will depend on reception to "The Grinning Man", as well as his own schedule. Davies is amenable to reprising the lead role in future, stating: "If David writes more, I'm happy to do them. Unless they turned up and they were awful - but it hasn't happened so far. And he wouldn't send me an awful one anyway. But I don't know if he will come up with another one. He always says that the writing is so difficult, I'm not sure it gives him any pleasure. But I think the shooting gave him a lot of pleasure this time. He was directing for the first time and I think he really enjoyed it. So, we'll see." ==Reception==

"The Grinning Man" received a mixed response from critics and was watched by 9.91 million viewers, The episode beat ITV's Marple in the same time-slot, with Geraldine McEwan's last episode as Agatha Christie's famous sleuth receiving just 4.48 million viewers Of the episode itself, he wrote: "It skids between procedural whodunit realism and cartoonish fantasy in a way that defies belief and interest. It is a dull confusion of unknotted loose ends that breaks its own rules, suspends common sense and dumps so much unexplained plot that all suspense drains away through the holes in the story." While The Scotsman's Paul Whitelaw similarly noted that Davies appeared to be playing "a slightly grumpier version" of himself, he was "quite impressed" by Davies performance, having never seen him act before. writing that its central mystery was "solid" and its solution was "satisfyingly creepy", but that "At two hours in length it was fatally overstretched [...] It was as though Renwick, who also directed, had been given 120 minutes to fill without having enough material to fill them – the narrative equivalent of an interminable jam session based around some fundamentally decent riffs." The Observer's Euan Ferguson shared a similar sentiment, writing that the episode: Unlike McKay and Gill, however, Ferguson praised both Davies' acting and the episode as a whole, deeming it "the best thing on television all week". The Times' Tim Teeman deemed the episode "comfort television", The Daily Telegraph' Gerard O'Donovan agreed that the episode felt "comfy and familiar", but also found its run-time overstretched, writing that it: Of Smith's performance as Joey, O'Donovan opined that: "For most drama series the presence of a key new character would have a tangible impact. But not Jonathan Creek, where characterisation has never been done in anything but the broadest brush strokes. Both Caroline Quentin and Julia Sawalha have previously filled the generic role of Creek's pushy, inquisitive partner pretty much interchangeably. Smith was no different. Ten minutes in and we'd forgotten she was anyone new." Scotland on Sunday's Chitra Ramaswamy discussed the nostalgia invoked by the series' return, alongside The Royle Family, Blackadder and Shooting Stars—other major shows which returned for 2008 Christmas specials. Ramaswamy wrote: "all the comforting, well kent faces are back to soothe us through these dismal times. In a culture that is becoming more and more risk-averse, it's the oldies but goodies that we trust." Sian Brewis for the Leicester Mercury also considered this nostalgia angle, but concluded that: "Jonathan Creek is the sort of auld acquaintance you’re happy to see once a year – any more than that, you feel, and his mannerisms would start to grate." She deemed the episode: "Less a blast from the past as a shuffling "excuse me". Pickles said of the episode: "It’s the gentle, facially expressive, deeply sceptical, somehow slightly daft performance of Davies as Creek that makes this sleuthing drama such a glory. But a one-off? Oh come on... you can do better than that." ==Footnotes==