When did Midsomer Murders change Barnaby? The swap kept the name on the badge
Midsomer Murders has been solving impossibly scenic village killings since 1997, but the detective doing the solving hasn't always been the same man. At some point the show pulled off one of British TV's smoothest lead swaps — and the trick was in the surname. Here's exactly when it happened, and why.
The date of the handover
John Nettles played DCI Tom Barnaby from the pilot, The Killings at Badger's Drift, in 1997 until his final episode, "Fit for Murder", aired on 2 February 2011 — 81 episodes across 13 series. His replacement, Neil Dudgeon, took over as the lead when series 14 began that spring, and he's held the job ever since. The character he plays is DCI John Barnaby — Tom's younger cousin, newly transferred to Causton CID from Brighton.
Why Nettles left
He announced the decision himself, back in 2009, giving the show two years' notice. Speaking to The Telegraph at the time, he explained he'd never imagined the pilot would lead to so many episodes, and that after 14 years it felt like the end of an era.
"It's always wise to leave people wanting more," Nettles told The Telegraph in 2009 — better that than being booed off the stage for boring people.
On screen, Tom Barnaby simply retired. At a birthday party in his final episode — attended by cousin John, conveniently — he announced an indefinite holiday, signing off with a promise to have his cake and eat it. That farewell pulled in 7.1 million viewers, the show's biggest audience since April 2008.
Why a cousin, of all things?
The swap was engineered so nothing on the badge — or the branding — had to change. A few things the cousin solution quietly preserved:
- The title abroad — in several countries the show airs as Inspector Barnaby, so a new Barnaby kept the international name intact.
- The format — a DCI Barnaby, a long-suffering sergeant, and a village full of suspects. Jason Hughes stayed on as DS Ben Jones to smooth the transition.
- The family template — Tom had wife Joyce and daughter Cully; John arrived with wife Sarah (Fiona Dolman), soon a daughter, and a dog.
Fun detail: Dudgeon had already appeared in Midsomer once before — as a completely different character, a gardener, in the series 4 opener "Garden of Death" back in 2000. Nobody minded.
Has it worked?
By any measure. As of December 2025, the show has clocked up 138 episodes over 24 series on ITV, and Dudgeon's tenure in years has now outlasted Nettles' — though Nettles still leads on episode count. The two Barnabys even reunited for the documentary Midsomer Murders — 25 Years of Mayhem in 2022.
For the record: the county's murder rate remains, per capita, the most alarming in fictional England. Neither Barnaby has ever thought of moving.