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9/10
Fascinating and multi-layered
pawebster16 March 2007
This is a wonderful two-parter from the series, which definitely seems to have benefited from Amanda Burton's departure. It's no longer a star vehicle, and all that posturing has gone.

This story is a sensitive look at the 'Meaning of Death' from various angles, including Christian and nihilistic Nietzschean ones.

Emilia Fox does particularly well, and Nicholas Sidi as the sensitive and suffering policeman is absolutely excellent. He should have been given his own series on the strength of this.

It is interesting that his character, Tom Wimber, shares a similar name, ailment and saliva spray as John Wimber, the leader of the Vineyard churches who died in 1997 (see Wikipedia for details).
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9/10
What's the Motive
Hitchcoc14 March 2019
Bodies begin piling up and yet there seems to be no obvious motive. The victims are young and they are attacked by an unseen murderer. The trick here will be to find the murderer with pure forensics. We do find out a bit more about Nikki. We also get to know a cop and a bit of his history. There is a startling discovery concluding the first half of the story.
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9/10
Best of the series.
Sleepin_Dragon19 July 2018
The Meaning of Death is far and away the best story from the fairly average ninth series, it's Nikki's turn to star as grim character of the week, but unlike the previous episodes in this series this one isn't overly morbid. There was a definite macabre scene from this series, the subject matter here is once again very dark, bodies buried in graves etc, very much part of the theme.

Fantastic performances throughout in this one, Emilia Fox is superb, but she's trumped by Rory Kinnear, who is outstanding. Paul Panting is also great, his character Tom is fantastic too, what's up with him?

A great start, 9/10
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Variation on a theme!
RobinD222 May 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Possible spoiler here but perhaps not. Good piece but clearly a variation on the theme of Patrick Hamilton's 1929 play Rope (also a 1948 Hitchcock film)and the 1959 film Compulsion (based on the 1957 novel Swoon by Meyer Levin) - both of which were inspired by the notorious 1924 US murder case of Leopold & Loeb - highly intelligent U. of Chicago students who murdered 14-year old Bobby Franks. The Meaning of Death quite effectively uses similar, but spurious, 'intellectual' and philosophical motivational themes.
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9/10
The "pig" in the room
allisonjoys7 July 2023
Warning: Spoilers
At the start there's a ransom note delivered to a father with a prominent career. His daughter's finger is also in the envelope. The first episode of Black Mirror popped into my head. Then 2/3 into the episode the actor who played the father in Black Mirror was introduced as an important character. Funny coincidence.

Overall these two episodes are probably my favorite since Sam Ryan left the show. It had just enough mystery and suspense to feel like a movie. In fact it kind of reminded me of Murder by Numbers.

I wish I didn't have to prattle on about nothing to reach the required characters.
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5/10
Continuity missing
thegenie4930 September 2017
I've just watched this episode for the very first time and was thoroughly enjoying it until the part regarding the fingerprints. The killer touched the picture with his left hand leaving a left thumb print and the glasses with his right hand leaving a right thumb print!!!! No persons 2 prints are the same and, as this was supposed to be the way the killer was caught, I was very disappointed. I'm looking for a job, can I be your continuity girl? You obviously need one.
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