A veteran actress is shot and killed while in an empty room. The bullet must have entered via the window but that's closed and undamaged. Maddy is in the US on a book tour so it looks like Jonathan will have to tackle this on his own. Luckily Carla Borrego, the agent of escape artist Alan Kalanak, is keen to help. Unfortunately she and Jonathan don't see eye to eye.
A two-hour episode of Jonathan Creek. This gives writer David Renwick room to develop characters and the plot, in theory. In practice what he then does is throw in a second murder, effectively having two episodes in one.
This said, there is more time allocated to sub-plots. The Jonathan-Carla one was interesting and has potential to become something longer term. Also good to see Julia Sawalha in the role: she's fantastic and the chemistry between her and Alan Davies is great.
The Kenny Starkiss one was amusing and is helped by him being played by the hilariously funny Bill Bailey.
On the downside, some of the extra time is just spent making things more complicated and it's not like the series needed more of that! Rather than help explain things, the longer running time just seems to make it even less understandable!
Ultimately this special episode is fine and par for the Jonathan Creek course.