John Nettles to leave Midsommer, TV bosses reveal

Murderers in rural Oxfordshire are now counting down the days until 2011 after John Nettles confirmed that Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby will be handing in his police badge after 13 years on the job.

Nettles, who rose to nationwide fame on the small screen through his portrayal as another softly-spoken sleuth, Bergerac, in the Channel Islands-based show of the same name, has policed the villages of Midsommer for 13 years now, establishing himself as a mainstay of the Sunday night TV guides.

Over that time, his character has appeared in 65 blood-soaked episodes and has always got his man – all 200 of them.

According to 66-year-old Nettles, the time has come for DCI Barnaby to bow out, though whether he will simply retire to the golf course or become another crime statistic is likely to remain under wraps until the final series airs in 2011.

"It's the end of an era for me, and while I'm very sad to be handing in Barnaby's police badge, he has solved nearly 200 murders, which I think meets the targets of modern policing," the actor told the Sun.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that other Sunday night staples such as 'Heartbeat' have soldiered on after the departure of main characters, ITV bosses have announced that they intend to carry on filming 'Midsommer Murders', with a new police chief set to step into Barnaby's shoes.

Due to join the evergreen series in the TV guides over the next couple of years will be returning favourites 'Doc Martin' and 'Folyle's War'.

Influenced by the enduring popularity of the two light entertainment shows, ITV has opted to bring them back, with Martin Clunes signed up for a fourth season of playing the humourless medic struggling to fit into life in a Cornish village.

At the same time, the broadcaster has ordered three new episodes of the wartime detective drama to be filmed after spring, with the eponymous hero set to be chasing unpatriotic criminals in the post VE-Day period, producers have confirmed.

Arguably justifying this policy of sticking with tried and tested formulas, ITV has also reported that its plans for the revamped 'Minder' have started to go awry, with the show struggling to hold onto its audience share and losing out to simpler alternatives such as 'Relocation, Relocation', which attracted almost twice the number of viewers, the latest TV guide figures show.