Midsomer Murders 'replaced' with new drama as ITV confirms future of show

There's nothing like a good drama to get stuck into on a Sunday night. ITV programme's that usually take the slot include Vera and Midsomer Murders, which has been keeping millions of viewers glued to their screens since 1997.

So fans of the show were delighted when series 23 kicked off with a two-hour instalment on Sunday, April 14. Called The Blacktrees Prophecy, the episode saw the return of DCI John Barnaby, played by Neil Dudgeon, who investigated a string of elaborate deaths in the rather dangerous fictional English county of Midsomer.

A synopsis for the episode read: "When a survivalist is found murdered in his bombproof shelter, Barnaby unravels a dark conspiracy to reveal how far people will go to escape the end of the world." However, after looking ahead to the schedule, Misomer Murders fans were gutted to learn the series wouldn't be airing its second episode the following week.

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Instead, ITV's new thriller Red Eye will air in the spot. Starring Richard Armitage and Lesley Sharp, the six-part thriller, which is set on the red eye flight from London to Beijing, sees an incident on-board leads DC Hana Li to uncover a wider conspiracy.

However, Midsomer Murder fans were not happy they were only getting one episode, with one writing on X, formerly known as Twitter: "So apparently this is another random schedule filler, and its not on next week...FFS @itv @itvx. This is not acceptable. #midsomermurders."

The same fan added: "It's obvious @itvpresscentre @itvx @itv don't give a fudge about #midsomermurders now and are just using it as a constant random filler for all their other promoted shows. Makes you wonder if they will bother making it for much longer."

While another said: "Yeah @ITV @itvpresscentre as much as I'm looking forward to #RedEye I would much rather have a whole series of #MidsomerMurders first."

However, ITV fans will be delighted to know that while Midsomer Murders is not currently on the schedule, there is plenty more to come. A spokesperson told Express.co.uk: "We only ever had one episode of Midsomer Murders scheduled as they are standalone stories and there'll be more episodes in the coming months. We have the launch of new drama Red Eye this Sunday for six weeks on ITV1 and streaming on ITVX."

According to the publication, there are three episodes still left to air from series 23, while series 24 was filmed last summer, is due to start appearing on screens on an as yet undisclosed date. You can keep up to date with the latest TV and showbiz news by signing up to the newsletter here.