gpcheng87

Love these types of shows and FB is near perfect - a fun cast of characters with varied episodes, with the added bonus of the side characters you want to come back for another appearance usually do.

Which leads to my only gripe about the series: I found the characters of Inspector Mallory and later his replacement Inspector Sullivan to take me out of things at times. Surrounded by impressively multi-faceted characters that actually grow with the series (i.e. Lady Felicia making up with her husband, Flambeau actually caring about Father Brown, Bunty learning some responsibility/encouraging other young women, Mrs. McCarthy becoming more accepting and adventurous, Brenda learning to trust people... etc.) makes the Mallory's unchanging and Sullivan's backward moving characters more noticeably strange. It's fine to have a hard-headed character who doesn't grow (i.e. Filch in the Harry Potter movies), but it only started to bother me when Mallory had 2 episodes where he was put in dire situations and seemed to have changed - the fact that even his family's well-being/safety wasn't enough to change him even a little was very unbelievable, especially with him mentioning his wife and kids multiple times and it being made pretty obvious he cares about them (i.e. Made the move to Kembleford specifically for them even though he doesn't like it there and was terrified to have his wife angry at him for missing his daughter's solo singing recital and going above and beyond to make it because he obviously loves his daughter, even crying when he finally heard her sing).

The most bizzare character is Sullivan in Season 10... in previous seasons, he is calm, friendly, competent, and respectful (compared to Mallory's more blatant annoyance with... everyone). Especially in S8E10, he and Inspector Valentine are extremely respectful towards Father Brown and openly welcome and even seek out his assistance, prefering him over Mallory. I was very surprised and confused when he reappeared in S10 as almost a "Mallory Version 2" - he is rude to Father Brown and Sargeant Goodfellow (throwing a teacup and saucer on the ground and ordering Goodfellow to clean it up?!) and suddenly is a TERRIBLE detective, ignoring obvious evidence and jumping to fallacious conclusions. It would have made more sense for a new character to have been the new Mallory instead of Sullivan.

Again, love this series and must emphasize my observations (about the characters and NOT the actors) are just what I think would bump it up a notch.