The Doctor Blake Mysteries

                Finally!  It took a while, but I have now seen the fifth and final season of The Doctor Blake Mysteries.  I am sad to see the show end, but I think it ended on a good note.

                Dr. Lucien Blake (Craig McLachlan) and Jean Beazley (Nadine Garner) are engaged!  After running into conflict after conflict, and problem after problem, Dr. Blake and Jean are finally together.  There is just one little problem.  Lucien is still married.  His wife, Mei Lin (Ling-Hsueh Tang), has agreed to a divorce, but the law is getting in the way.  There are very few instances in which a divorce will be granted, and all will cast either one or both Mei Lin and Dr. Blake in a bad light.  Neither Lucien nor Jean will let Mei Lin be the guilty party in the divorce.  Lucien wants to take the blame instead, but Jean warns him there could be severe repercussions if he does.                         

                The thing is, Jean will have repercussions of her own if she does marry Dr. Blake.  Her church will not let her get married to Lucien in her church because he will be a divorced man.  Jean is forced to choose between the church she has been a part of her entire life and the man she loves.  When Lucien is stabbed, the answer becomes very clear.

                Dr. Blake is stabbed while solving a murder, not knowing someone else is directly out to kill him at the same time.  It isn’t until former Chief Superintendent William Munro (Craig Hall) returns to town that Lucien finds out someone is out to get him.  In fact, it is Munro, despite their bad history, who saves Lucien’s life.

                Also returned to the show is Chief Superintendent Matthew Lawson (Joel Tobeck).  He is back in charge again after Chief Superintendent Frank Carlyle (Rodger Corser) leaves due to all the debts that he owes.  Still struggling with the leg that was broken by a car, it is not always easy for Matthew being back in charge.  It is difficult for him to move around, which has him sending those he works with out to find information for him.  Seeing Matthew needs more care than he will admit, Lucien invites Matthew to board at his house.  Not only will Matthew not have to deal with stairs there, he will also have Lucien around to help him with his physical therapy.

                Sergeant Charlie Davis (Charlie Cousins) is a still a boarder at Dr. Blake’s as well.  He is now dating Lawson’s niece, journalist Rose Anderson (Anna McGahan).  In the first episode of the season we get to meet some of Charlie’s family, his brother and his mother, and understand a little more about where he comes form.  Rose we see grow, as she learns there can be damages with what she writes.

                Throughout the personal situations, murders must be solved.  Helping Dr. Blake with the autopsies is Dr. Alice Harvey (Belinda McClory).  Not one to put up with Lucien’s single-minded, self-absorbed ways, she is a great person to keep him in check.

                I have to say the fifth season of The Doctor Blake Mysteries was so much better than the fourth.  It got back to being the show I so much enjoyed before, and with the characters growing in positive ways.  Rose was the biggest improvement.  While I do not think she and Charlie should have been paired up (not every single female and male need to become a couple), I like how she matured and thought about people more.  What drove me crazy about her in the fourth season was how everything was about the newspaper story.  It mattered little who she hurt or how she got her story, as long as she got it.  In this season, other than in the first episode, she thought about who her stories would affect more.  Rose still reported the news, as it was her job to do.  She just did it with more care, thinking about who may be harmed on the other end.

                Something else that happened was the men really came out in support of Jean.  Lucien’s frequent nemesis, Patrick Tyneman (John Wood), would visit Jean and tell her how he wanted her to be happy.  Then Matthew threatened Lucien about how if he ever hurt Jean, then Matthew would come and hurt him.  With all that Dr. Blake puts Jean through, it was nice to see these men come to her defense.

                Now, don’t get me wrong.  I was very happy to see Lucien and Jean get married in the final episode.  The problem was Dr. Blake was so aggravating through the rest of the season.  He kept making decisions that would affect both him and Jean without consulting Jean.  Or he would consult her and do something other than what they agreed to do.  Dr. Blake is really lucky Jean is as understanding as she is, otherwise I think she would have been gone long before they got to the altar.

                With this show getting back to what I liked about it so much (good, thought out mysteries with good characters), I’m especially sad to see this series end.  There is a spin-off starring Jean called The Blake Mysteries, but I don’t know if I’ll get the opportunity to see it.  I hope I do, because I would love to see what happens to Jean and the other characters in the future.