Wednesday, 25th July 2007.

The world's most disastrous pitch

Tonight on the Bentley Productions / Fox crossover:...Jack Bauer meets Tom Barnaby in 24: Midsomer.

The world's most hapless detective since Clouseau and the world's hardest secret agent since - well, ever - join forces for Murder in Midsomer. News reaches Cawston C.I.D. of an assasination attempt on a local landowner. D.C. Jones has gone fishing for the weekend so Barnaby has no choice but to team up with tough, uncompromising Agent Bauer. Barnaby's meandering incompetence serves as the perfect comic foil for Bauer's gruff, intense demeanour, but things get serious when the landowner turns up dead, hit over the head with a blunt object of no apparent importance - and then Bauer uncovers a gripping, multilayered conspiracy involving a nuclear bomb, the local biscuit factory, and political scandal at the Midsomer Nettle summer fete. Can the two heroes save the day without Barnaby getting dragged away from another family meal?

"Cawston C.I.D., Barnaby speaking."
"Tom, it's Jack. I'm just approaching the Anderson farm now. Can you confirm that the target is there?"
"Well, I haven't really had the chance to look, yet. It took a while to pay the bill at the Three Horsehoes, and then I had to nip into the Cawston Antiques Store to follow up on a lead in the Melversley silverware robbery case - "
"Tom, this is important. I think your family may be in danger."
"What, Joyce? I'd hardly think so, although I did give her the full facts of the case last night in minute detail - just to get her opinion, you understand. Anyway, Cully's off potholing in the Wye Valley with Scott, so I think she's out of harm's way."
"Tom! Stay focussed. We have to find that horse before the explosive in its rectal area destroys the farm and the whole of Midsomer. Now I need you to send those coordinates to my satnav, and then I need you over here. I can't take this one down alone."
"All right, Jack. I'll be there as soon as I can. Stay on the line and we'll arrange a rendezvous point. Just watch yourself round there, though - the signals tend to dip in and - Jack? Hello? Can you hear me, Jack? Helloooo?"