A cult British DetectiveDrama about the eponymous Jonathan Creek (Alan Davies), a celebrity magician's trick-designer with a keen eye for detail and lateral thinking who helps solve seemingly impossible crimes, often a LockedRoomMystery. He works together IntrepidReporter Maddy Magellan (Caroline Quentin) -- and later, with Carla Burrego (Julia Sawalha) in season 4 and with Joey Ross (Sheridan Smith) in the most recent specials. The series is written by David Renwick, otherwise known for ''OneFootInTheGrave''. The two shows share his trademark intricate plotting and black sense of humour.

Jonathan has a thing or two in common with SherlockHolmes, in that he's a bit of a social dolt and obsessed with his job, and feels most comfortable just quietly working on his gadgets. However, unlike Holmes, he's neither very crass nor particularly brilliant (just regular clever and GoodWithNumbers). LoveInterest Maddy subverts a number of tropes as well: she's not part of TheBeautifulElite, and the tension between her and Jonathan just quietly builds up without too much drama. Both are simply [[UnfazedEveryman rather ordinary people]] with a keen eye for detail, caught up in extraordinary events.

The show's chief theme was the same one expressed by SherlockHolmes in his aphorism "once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth". Jonathan would explain that most people are much more willing to consider something "impossible" or invent a supernatural explanation, than allow themselves to believe that a man would put himself to the trouble of arranging a complex set of events to make it ''look'' that way. Jonathan takes this one step further by pointing out that most people are eager to believe extraordinary phenomena simply because the solutions are mind-numbingly banal: "People beg me to explain, but it’s the last thing you want to hear. Because I’m disproving a miracle."

Jonathan's employer, Adam Klaus, became a regularly appearing character from the second season, usually in a comic-relief subplot rather than getting involved in the mystery-solving. (Although a skilled magician, Adam is also a great big jerk.)

Seasons 1-3 aired between 1997 and 2000. A Christmas special aired in 2001, introducing TV presenter Carla Burrego as Maddy's replacement and was followed by a full fourth season in 2003-04. A few feature-length specials (featuring third female sidekick, Joey Ross) followed; one at New Year 2009, one at Easter 2010, and one at Easter 2013. Prior to the airing of the 2013 special, it was announced that a new miniseries (consisting of three 60-minute episodes) had been commissioned for 2014, the show's first full run in a decade.

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!!This show provides examples of:
* AbuseIsOkayWhenItsFemaleOnMale: Used as a plot-point in "The Scented Room" in which Lady Theresa's abuse of her husband is first seen as amusing (when she puts stinging nettle in her JerkAss husband's sandwich) and then deadly serious when she hits him over the back of the head with a trowel. Later, [[spoiler:after a valuable painting mysteriously vanishes, her husband uses this head wound to make it seem as though he'd been attacked by an intruder in order to claim money from the insurance company]]. A witness also points out that Lady Theresa's behaviour is completely inappropriate, especially in front of her young son.
* AllAsiansAreAlike: Played for laughs in "Mother Redcap" in which a police detective passes around several photographs of potential assassins from an Asian crime family -- the joke is that they're all the same actor in different clothes. It's {{inverted}} later in the episode when the murder victim's wife is brought to the station to look over some possible suspects. She confidentally identifies one who was prowling around in her back garden, although again -- ''they're all the same actor''.
* AllDrummersAreAnimals: The band Edwin Drood had Marty Crowe who got the band thrown out of Zaire by riding a wildebeest into the presidents' jacuzzi and was known for his stunt of urinating on the audience.
* AlwaysMurder: Averted, although murder is involved in most of the stories. The exceptions are [[spoiler:"The Seer of the Sands" and "Time Waits for Norman"]] which involve unravelling an elaborate con, [[spoiler:"No Trace of Tracey"]], a kidnapping, [[spoiler:"The Curious Tale of Mr Spearfish"]], which explains a DealWithTheDevil, [[spoiler:"The Omega Man"]], a fake alien hoax, [[spoiler:"The Scented Room"]], a stolen painting, [[spoiler:"The Clue of the Savant's Thumb"]] an accidental death that gets covered up. Other episodes ''can'' contain a murder, but as a sub-plot that isn't part of the main mystery [[spoiler:"Miracle on Crooked Lane"]], whilst others have suicide or euthanasia as the solution.
* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Creator/RikMayall's character in "Black Canary" is TheAce, exactly as clever as Jonathan, and extremely GenreSavvy. In a very sweet twist on the trope, though, the two instantly get along well and they happily work together on the case.
* AmateurSleuth: Jonathan -- very reluctantly.
* AmbiguousGender: Gideon Pryke's deputy Sgt Richie in "Black Canary"; in an episode-long RunningGag, Jonathan and Maddy disagree on his/her gender and have a £10 bet - just before the resolution, they spot him/her heading for the end of a corridor with male toilets and one side and female on the other, but Pryke closes the door before they can see. Amusingly at the end they've managed to switch positions and each try to pay the other - neither they nor the viewers find out which it was. [[spoiler: The character was played by a man.]]
* AppealToAudacity: Happened quite a lot, in which suspects and witnesses alike would come up with ridiculous stories -- and Jonathan would believe every word, working with the logic that if they were truly covering for a crime, they'd hardly be stupid enough to come up with a story that no one would ever believe.
* ArmourPiercingQuestion: In "Jack in the Box", Maddie proposes an elaborate solution for the LockedRoomMystery they are facing, only for Jonathan to bring her to a screeching halt with a single word: "Why?".
-->"Why would anyone undertake this extraordinary series of actions you have just described?"
* AsHimself: In one episode, Adam appears on ''Friday Night with Jonathan Ross''. The various notable actors from other BBC series whose pictures can be seen on the walls in the offices of the company behind Eyes and Ears might also be a partial example.
* AssholeVictim: Often. Sometimes if the crime is something less serious than murder, this is enough for Jonathan and Maddy to conceal the truth from them (although this leads to FridgeLogic considering Maddy writes up all the stories for publication).
** "The Scented Room" shows Maddy explaining to her psychiatrist that unfortunately she won't be able to publish the story, since she and Jonathan sided with the perpetrator against the AssholeVictim. Presumably she doesn't publish other cases of the sort as well. Out of interest, the AssholeVictim in this particular case wasn't a murder victim, but simply a smarmy critic who had a valuable painting stolen.
* AuthenticationByNewspaper: Subverted in the 2008 special.
* BadassBystander: In "The Scented Room", a little old lady watches Adam get nailed into a coffin to be lowered into the ground as part of an endurance test. Unfortunately, she thinks they're gangsters, and attacks them with a tree branch, a can of mace, and a whistle. She manages to take out three grown men!
* BananaPeel: After seeing an advertisement invoking this trope, Jonathan tries to prove that it could never happen. He finally slips and falls backwards... but is still proved correct considering it was actually a dog turd that he slipped on.
* BavarianFireDrill: Maddy, being an investigative journalist, is pretty good at throwing these.
* BestServedCold: [[spoiler: The central plot behind "The Judas Tree".]]
* BiTheWay: Brendan. He really doesn't consider it a big deal. Carla does, and is ''not'' happy when she finds out.
* BigEater: Maddy.
--> ''I don't know what I want, I'm not even hungry. A drop of chilli will do me, with some rice. And a spot of salad...and some garlic bread. A jacket potato. Oh, and some crisps.''
* BlackComedyRape: In a deleted scene in "The Grinning Man", Joey's actress friend Mina gives her tickets to her new play and warns her that there's a graphic rape scene. Cut to Mina getting taken from behind by a man in a papier-mâché bull's head making loud mooing noises.
* BritishBrevity: A very notable example, because Renwick needs a lot of time to formulate each locked room mystery.
* BrokenPedestal: Jonathan lampshades this when he finds he's about to meet his hero, hardcore prog-rock icon Roy Pilgrim:
--> '''Jonathan''': I can't go in there.
--> '''Maddy''': Why not?
--> '''Jonathan''': ''Roy Pilgrim''! I can't meet ''Roy Pil''... you're talking about ''mythology''! You reduce someone like that to flesh and blood, the whole thing's destroyed, the whole ''icon''...
--> '''Maddy''': Jonathan, you're beginning to sound like a prat.
** Sure enough, a minor case ensues; Jonathan is struck dumb with mild disillusionment when he learns that Pilgrim is a devoted viewer of ''TheWaltons''.
* TheButlerDidIt: [[spoiler:Played straight in "Black Canary"]].
* TheCassandra: Jack Holiday's wife, who insists that a recently released prisoner was responsible for her husband's death, despite all evidence to the contrary.
* CatFight: Actually manages to be an important plot-point in "Angel Hair."
* ChekhovsSkill: Card-throwing in "The Three Gamblers".
** And in the same episode, Maddy's ability [[spoiler: to faint convincingly]].
* ChristmasEpisode: All movie-length, two of which were also introductory episodes to Jonathan's new sidekicks.
* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Sheena from "No Trace of Tracy" is allegedly Maddy's best friend but she appears only in that one episode and is never even mentioned again. May also apply to Maddy's photographer boyfriend from "The Wrestler's Tomb" but it's possible (likely, even, given how much they were arguing in that episode) they simply split up.
* ClingyJealousGirl: Maddy. Not particularly clingy, but at one stage she gets so irritated with Jonathan that she locks him out of her apartment simply because she saw another woman getting into his car.
* CluelessMystery: Not used often, but at least once or twice. In one episode, which looked like a LockedRoomMystery, the victim was apparently stabbed in the back with a sword [[spoiler: but the actual murder weapon was a drug which made him hallucinate violently and lose his balance while trying to climb a bookcase and fall on his own sword. While there were clues to what the murder weapon was, the murderer was not well-known to any characters and never appeared on camera.]].
* CompletelyMissingThePoint: When Carla freaks out over the fact that her husband was once married to a man, all he does is casually chide her about the fact that she's being "a bit homophobic."
* ConnectTheDeaths: Deconstructed/criticised in the episode "The Coonskin Cap" in which Carla's crime show speculates that a recent serial killer is targeting women that have floral names, the three victims being called Rose, Iris and Heather. It turns out that two murders were the work of [[spoiler:a disturbed young woman who had no discernable motive]] and the third was by [[spoiler:a police officer who used the first two deaths as a cover for his own murder]]. The names were a coincidence, but until it was cleared up, Jonathan points out that thanks to the show's fear-mongering, women named after flowers were scared out of their wits (including a publicist called "Coral", at least until Jonathan tells her that coral is actually an animal).
* [[SeriesContinuityError Continuity Error]]: An InUniverse example in "Angel Hair". [[spoiler:Disgusted at her boss's [[GoodAdulteryBadAdultery adultery]] with an air-line hostess, Dorothy tries to make it appear as though the woman has faked her own kidnapping in order to extort money from her lover. This involves a bunch of actors grabbing the woman off the street and having her read out a ransom note, and then cutting off her hair for good measure. Unfortunately, directly ''prior'' to this, the wife catches her husband and his lover kissing on the front lawn and engages in a hair-pulling CatFight with her rival. When Dorothy puts in the tape that she supposedly found in the woman's suitcase (though she planted it there herself) and presses play (though she's actually ''recording'' the staged kidnapping that is happening live), it poses a serious continuity problem considering the kidnappers display the day's newspaper directly ''before'' cutting off all the woman's hair, making it look like she got her hair cut off in the morning, only to grow it all back again by that same afternoon. The CatFight rendered the possibility of a wig or hair extensions completely impossible. She notes with some frustration that the actor she hired to stage the kidnapping was only supposed to remove a few locks of hair for dramatic effect, but got too immersed and ended up getting carried away with it]].
* ContrivedCoincidence: This was usually avoided by Maddy (or Carla or Joey) going in search of crime or people coming them for help, but in "Murder at Gallows Gate", Jonathan heads into a nature reserve for a badger watch, taking with him an old woman who ends up witnessing a strangulation in a cottage window. And the reason she sees this is because she needs the toilet at just that exact moment.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: "Black Canary" involves a magic trick featuring a table saw that... doesn't stop cutting when it's supposed to.
* CutApart: It looks like two people are on opposite sides of a locked door and one even rattles the handle as the other watches, but it later turns out that this was an extremely elaborate trick and they were in two separate locations.
* CutAwayGag: In one episode Jonathan and Adam are attending an event and are introduced to a frail old man in a wheelchair whose carer explains to them, "He's been dying to show you his magic trick." Cut to a man attempting a Houdini style escape whilst strung upside down in a body-bag over burning coals.
* DeadpanSnarker: Many characters tend towards this, but Jonathan masters it.
* DealWithTheDevil: "The Curious Tale of Mr Spearfish" revolves around a man who thinks he's made one of these.
* DefectiveDetective: Subverted somewhat; Jonathan was a bit weird and anti-social, but often came across as more down-to-earth and well-adjusted than Maddy and especially Carla.
* DerailingLoveInterests: Nicola from "The Grinning Man" dumps Jonathan in order to run off with a man she's never met.
* DetectiveDrama
* DoingItForTheArt: Jonathan loves building gadgets, and goes out of his way to make whatever he builds to solve a mystery look absolutely gorgeous.
* DisproportionateRetribution: In "Murder at Gallows Gate". On realizing that his LoveInterest is sleeping with one of his friends, Duncan Proctor [[spoiler:''fakes his own suicide'']] in order to punish her. Even Jonathan calls it "a sick joke."
* DreamingOfThingsToCome: An old lady in "The Eyes of Tiresias" believes she's capable of doing this.
* DrivenToSuicide: Played with in ''Murder at Gallows Gate''. Not only do we have Duncan Proctor (who [[spoiler:faked his own suicide]]), but also Felicity Veil, who [[spoiler:attempts suicide, only to be prevented by a friend, only to ''then'' be murdered by her flatmate.]]
* DrivesLikeCrazy: The DI in "Mother Redcap" which greatly unnerves Jonathan.
** Maddy, at times. At one point Jonathan freaks out because she's dialing a number on her cellphone whilst driving.
** {{Subverted}} with Jonathan, who when forced to drive Maddy's car, drives so slowly and carefully that it creates a pile-up behind him. When asked whether he's ever driven an automatic before, he replies: "I've never driven a ''car'' before!" One hilarious GilliganCut later, and Maddy's is back in the driver's seat.
* ElephantInTheLivingRoom: The ''really big'' BlackCanary statue next to the stairwell, in "Black Canary", is [[spoiler: never mentioned by anyone and has no connection whatsoever to the murder]].
* EmbarrassingFirstName: "Adam" Klaus, called "Chester" by his sister.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Jonathan is first seen in a grocery store, mentally tallying up the numbers that appear on the checkout computer screen and then insisting that the total sum is wrong. One manager with a calculator later, the checkout is closed thanks to the faulty equipment. What further establishes his character (slightly weird but sharply observant and essentially decent and good-hearted) is that it's the shopping of the woman in front of him that he's figuring out is charged wrong, not his own--and that the woman is nonetheless weirded out by the fact that he's buying a doll and some knives (in order to make a scale model for a planned magic trick).
** Adam Klaus is first seen making a heartfelt and sincere thank you to an audience, calling them the best crowd he's ever performed for. The next camera shot reveals that it's an empty theatre, and he's just rehearsing, thus instantly demonstrating what a smarmy, insincere phony he is.
* EthicalSlut: Joey, who will sleep with a guy knowing only that his name is Brad, but back off and apologise sincerely to his girlfriend when she realises he has one.
* EurekaMoment: Ex-TropeNamer
* EveryoneLooksSexierIfFrench: Francesca in "The Wrestler's Tomb." [[FakeNationality The actress was actually Dutch]] but they made her character French because they didn't think Dutch was sexy enough.
* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys: "The House of Monkeys".
* FairPlayWhodunnit: The audience typically has the same set of clues that Jonathan does (bar one or two pieces of evidence - often police or medical records -- that would make the result too easy), but the solutions often take a bit of lateral thinking, making this an interesting case.
** Also subverted in that the audience rarely knows whether an episode is going to be a whodunnit or a howdunnit until TheSummation.
* FailureKnight: Maddy, to a certain extent. Her particular niche of crime writing - bungled police investigations - is implied to have been inspired by [[spoiler:her mother's suicide shortly after being brought up on a (possibly) false shoplifting charge.]]
* FakeAmerican: In-show one, with Adam Klaus. In one episode Adam Klaus's (much) older half sister appeared, and she had a strong Scottish accent. No one comments on it.
* {{Fanboy}}: In "No Trace Of Tracy", Jonathan completely geeks out when he gets to investigate a case surrounding his prog-rock idol, Roy Pilgrim.
** Jonathan meets a group of his own look-alike fanboys (complete with long shaggy hair) in ''Miracle on Crooked Lane''. On seeing a photo of them all lined up at a table Maddy comments: "I see what you mean about the last supper."
%%* FridgeLogic: See {{JustBugsMe.JonathanCreek}}
* FanService: Jonathan gets naked ''a lot''. He also has a fair number of snogging scenes.
* FingerInTheMail: The titular hair in "Angel Hair".
* FriendlyRivalry: In his two appearances Inspector Gideon Pryke has one with Jonathan. He's just as smart and ''almost'' as good at lateral thinking. He just doesn't get the EurekaMoment.
* FunnyBackgroundEvent: Twice. In "No Trace of Tracy", Maddy interviews a man in a sound-proof room whilst his colleagues have a brawl in the two-way mirror behind them, and in "Time Waits for Norman", Maddy holds a conversation with a man outside his house whilst Jonathan snoops around for clues and gets attacked by a vicious Jack Russell. A dismayed Maddy sees all this through the bay windows.
** [[spoiler: What makes it even funnier is that the man then walks to into a different house]].
* {{Gaslighting}}: In "The Judas Tree". Jonathan also refers to the Trope Namer during the episode.
* GenderBlenderName: Joey Ross in the 2009 special, the character being played by an actress who herself has a GenderBlenderName, Sheridan Smith.
* GeniusDitz: Joey Ross has the same level of lateral thinking skills as Jonathan, but without ''any'' technical knowledge whatsoever.
* GenreSavvy: See BrokenPedestal above, Jonathan knows exactly how meeting one of his icons in the flesh is going to destroy his image of him.
* GoodAdulteryBadAdultery: No affair is ever portrayed in a positive light, though many occur in understandable circumstances.
** The UnresolvedSexualTension between Jonathan and Carla in season four is based on the fact that she's married to another man, and yet still obviously attracted to Jonathan. Somewhat {{deconstructed}} however in that Jonathan has no interest whatsoever in messing around with a married woman, despite his rather low opinion of Carla's husband. Also subverted in that her husband doesn't bat an eye at Carla passionately kissing Jonathan right in front of him -- he's just ''that'' secure.
* GroinAttack: "Black Canary" has a very, very nasty example indeed.
* HandicappedBadass: Gideon Pryke in "The Case of the Savant's Thumb". Since his previous appearance he was hit by a sniper's bullet, and can only move one finger ... which was apparently enough [[FlippingTheBird to tell his superiors what he thought of being retired]].
* HaventYouSeenXBefore: "Time Waits for Norman":
-->'''Maddy:''' Yes, all right. Haven't you ever seen a transvestite before?
* HesBack: About half an hour into "The Case of the Savant's Thumb", [[SameCharacterButDifferent advertising exec]] Jonathan Creek finally gets interested enough in the case to go to the wardrobe, shove the nice suits out of the way, and pull out his trademark [[RummageSaleReject duffel coat]].
* HeyItsThatGuy: Possibly second only to ''Series/DoctorWho'' for having a reputation for well-known British actors in unlikely roles.
** From ''DoctorWho'':
*** The [[Series/DoctorWho Fifth Doctor]] as a vicar in "Danse Macabre"
*** The Sixth is the murder victim in the pilot episode.
*** And the Eighth appears in the 2010 Easter special "The Judas Tree".
*** While Joey, Jonathan's partner from "The Grinning Man" onwards, is the Eighth Doctor's audio companion [[Characters/BigFinishDoctorWho Lucie Miller]].
*** The vicar from "The Judas Tree" is [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E03VictoryOfTheDaleks Churchill]]!
*** Romana appears in "Satan's Chimney".
*** Martha's mom Francine, meanwhile, stars in "The Curious Tale of Mr Spearfish".
*** And Carla is [[DoctorWhoTheCurseOfFatalDeath Emma]].
** Comedian BobMonkhouse as the AssholeVictim Sylvester Le Fley in "The Scented Room" - Monkhouse later used this as an example for his comment "my non-comedic acting roles tend to be the sort of person who would keep their cocoa warm by burning down an orphanage".
** "Black Canary" features [[TheYoungOnes Rik Mayall]] as Gideon Pryke, [[{{Coupling}} Kate Isitt]] as Charlotte, and [[GoodnessGraciousMe Sanjeev Bhaskar]] as a doctor. Pryke returns in "The Case of the Savant's Thumb".
** "The Curious Tale of Mr Spearfish" had [[NotTheNineOClockNews Griff Rhys Jones]] as a lawyer .
** [[TheYoungOnes Adrian Edmondson]] appears in a recurring role as Carla Borrego's husband in Series 4.
** Comedian Jack Dee in "Angel Hair" as a songwriter who married a pop starlet (whose actress is probably still well-remembered from CoronationStreet).
** [[Series/RedDwarf Hattie Hayridge]] appears as a comedy magician.
** A somewhat obscure one: One of Adam's girlfriends was Eurydice in Jim Henson's ''Series/TheStoryteller.''
** [[TheYoungOnes Nigel Planer]] shows up as Maddy's blind date in "The Reconstituted Corpse".
** [[OneFootInTheGrave Margret]] appears as Jonathan's doctor and the wife of the murder victim in "The House of Monkeys".
** Gillian Bailey in "Gorgon's Wood" is also [[{{Series/Merlin}} Prince Arthur's mother]].
** [[{{Hustle}} Eddy]] shows up in season 1 as a band member and season 2 as a bum.
** [[Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Geoffrey McGivern]] appears in a few episodes as Maddy's publicist.
** BillBailey appears twice as street performer Kenny Starkiss.
** [[Series/{{Coupling}} Susan Walker]] is [[spoiler: Jonathan's wife]] Polly.
* HoneyTrap: Gillian Bailey in "Gorgon's Wood".
* HypocriticalHumour: Meta example--Alistair [=McGowan=] appeared in the pilot episode, but later repeatedly mocked the show's complicated plots on his own show ''The Big Impression''. One sketch has [=McGowan=], as Creek, trying to give TheSummation by coming up with increasingly far-fetched solutions implicating each unlikely suspect in turn, while ignoring a man in the corner carrying an axe, covered in blood and grinning.
* IdenticalStranger: Gillian Bailey and the prostitute, though the latter has a badly burnt face. They're played by the same actress.
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Several times. There is even one example where someone gets impaled by two spikes at the same time.
* IncestIsRelative: "Gorgon's Wood" involves a woman sweet-talking her uncle into letting her museum host a priceless statuette. It gets even more icky when it's realized [[spoiler:that she went so far as to hire a prostitute to pretend to be her]].
* InformedAbility: Although certainly clever and brave, Joey is initially introduced as Jonathan's intellectual equal, described on a television show as "someone whose powers of deduction and truly phenomenal flair for solving seemingly impossibly puzzles are beyond cool." Yet apart from ascertaining that the Nightmare Room is inescapable and discovering a clue that Jonathan misses (one which she slightly misinterprets), she doesn't solve any part of the mystery, and eventually admits: "I'm out of my depth here."
** In "The Judas Tree" Adam describes her to Jonathan as someone who is: "every bit as smart as you." Except...she's really not, and once again she doesn't provide any meaningful insight into the mystery they're trying to solve.
* IntrepidReporter: Both Maddy and Carla will go to considerable lengths to land a story.
* InnocentInnuendo: Happens quite a few times; usually with Maddy. At one point she tells Jonathan over the phone: "I need you, here in my bedroom." The next scene shows Jonathan taking off his shoes and getting on the bed while Maddy watches nervously...only for Jonathan to reach up and tip the cockroach on the ceiling into a glass jar.
** There was also a ''very'' dark usage of this in "Gorgon's Wood", in which a videotape is found showing what appears to be a young woman having a screaming orgasm. Turns out [[spoiler:the camera had tipped onto its side, and what everyone was seeing was her getting impaled against a tree by a large garden fork.]]
* InnOfNoReturn: "Mother Redcap".
* InterdisciplinarySleuth: Jonathan [[MagicianDetective designs conjuring tricks]] for a living and is relectantly brought in to the world of crime-fighting by a chance meeting and a love of puzzles.
** Maddy (and Carla and Joey, for that matter) technically avert this trope. While none of them are cops or law enforcement, they are all journalists of different sorts specializing in crime stories.
* IWasQuiteALooker [[spoiler: the old (dead) homeless lady in ''Mother Redcap'' was once a fairly literal femme fatal.]]
* KnifeThrowingAct
* LethalChef: Maddy. Almost literally - Jonathan is appalled to find that she's got a canister of petrol in her kitchen at the same time the gas stove is on. On ''fire'', specifically. The meal turned out alright, funnily enough.
* LockedRoomMystery: Pretty much the show's trademark, and often {{lampshaded}}. Even if the mystery isn't literally in a locked room, it will inevitably be an "impossible" mystery in the same vein.
* LovingAShadow: Played rather poignantly in ''Ghosts Forge''. Initially Robin Priest seems like a jerk for cheating on his wife with the vile Mimi Tranter. By the end of the episode it turns out that Shirley is not only [[spoiler:''not'' his wife]] but that he was only attracted to Mimi because of her [[spoiler:resemblance to his ''real'' wife]]. Though the show never explicitly spells it out, [[FridgeBrilliance the portraits displayed throughout Ghosts Forge explain why he was so instantly drawn to her]], even though he probably didn't understand the attraction himself.
* MagicianDetective: Jonathan's a magician's assistant technically, but he has far more knowledge of the material even than the magician itself, so he definately counts.
* TheMasochismTango: Platonic version with Jonathan and Adam.
* MeetCute: Jonathan and Maddy meet at a magic show when Jonathan mistakes Maddy's thumb for a cocktail sausage and sticks a toothpick into it.
* MoodWhiplash: ''The Grinning Man'' has a plot about [[spoiler: a stage magician]] killing people [[spoiler: and just generally being a MagnificentBastard]] and a sub-plot about... 3-D porn.
** An in-universe example; in one episode, Adam is forced into a date-from-hell with an uncouth woman who won (second prize in) a raffle to date him. It's comedically embarrassing, and Jonathan gets plenty of amusement from it. The next morning, Adam shows up to the theatre shell-shocked, and recounts the rest of the evening; it initially continues in the same humourously embarrassing vein as before, but much to Jonathan's shock swerves wildly into BlackComedy territory when Adam reveals that she ended up choking to death on her own vomit.
-->'''Adam:''' Several large crustaceans lodged in her windpipe. Kind of brings it home to you, doesn't it? How important it is to ... [[LackOfEmpathy always]] [[ComicallyMissingThePoint chew your food]].
* MoralDissonance: The end of ''The Judas Tree'' in which [[spoiler:a pregnant woman is killed and a girl is framed and sent to jail for a crime she didn't commit. The whole thing was a set-up for a crime they committed when they were teenagers.]] Jonathan and Joey know the entire story, and yet [[spoiler:apparently decide to keep quiet]].
** It's not so much they [[spoiler:decide to keep quiet as they actually can't prove any of it.]] Harriet Dore [[spoiler:directly states that Jonathan's previous failure in court will pretty much destroy any credibility he has in presenting any new telling of events.]] Additionally the housekeeper [[spoiler:who is also aware of the truth pretty firmly tells the pair that because she overheard it from a confession box, she's obligated to keep it a secret.]]
* MummiesAtTheDinnerTable: In the episode [[spoiler:"The Seer of the Sands"]].
* MySiblingWillLiveThroughMe
* NakedPeopleAreFunny: The series is all over this trope, especially in "Mother Redcap"... when Maddy accidentally starts dating a guy who lives in a nudist commune.
* ThePowerOfActing: Carla reminds Jonathan in "Satan's Chimney" that all the suspects are trained actors who will naturally be able to put up a convincing show of grief for the murder victim.
* OddFriendship: Jonathan and Adam. Sure, Jonathan is employed by Adam and so ''has'' to spend time with him, but as the series goes on, the two occasionally socialize with each other outside of work and act as [[TheConfidant each other's confidants]].
* OnlySaneEmployee: Jonathan's role within the Alan Klaus magic act.
* OperationJealousy: Maddy tries this in "The Reconstituted Corpse", but unfortunately her date ends up looking and acting like (in Jonathan's words) "The bastard son of ForrestGump."
* TheOtherDarrin: Adam Klaus was played by Anthony Head in the first episode but he had to drop out owing to his role in [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Buffy]] although his photo appears on Adam Klaus t-shirts and posters throughout Series One. From Series 2 onwards he's played by Stuart Milligan, and appears in pretty much every episode.
* ThePerfectCrime: Well, all of them to one extent or other, but special mention but go to the killer in "Jack in the Box", considering everything, [[spoiler:including his own suicide]] goes according to plan, and the master-mind behind the events in "Angel Hair" who was thwarted by completely unforeseen circumstances, and still got what she wanted out of the entire exercise, though not in the way she planned: [[spoiler:getting her employer to stop cheating on his wife.]]
* ThePeteBest: Stuart Milligan is considered the definitive Adam Klaus, particularly since Anthony Stewart Head only played him in the pilot episode.
** A straighter example is Maddy's cameraman boyfriend from the pilot (played by [[HeyItsThatGuy Alistair McGowan]]) who was intended to become a recurring character, but is never mentioned again.
* PoorCommunicationKills: That damn [[spoiler: harvest fly]]. And there's also a difference between [[spoiler:"East Barn" and "EA St Barn."]].
* PositiveDiscrimination: Averted. Throughout the series there is only ''one'' female police investigator. She's just as useless in solving the crime as all the males.
* PutOnABus: Maddy moves to the US for a while. Jonathan keeps in touch, and she helps him solve a case at one point via email.
* PutOnABusToHell: This didn't ''exactly'' happen to Carla Burrego, but in "The Grinning Man" she still gets a rather mean-spirited mention, in which Jonathan Creek learns that she's been telling people that he died of a wasting illness. Apparently writer David Renwick and actress Julia Sawalha didn't get along, which may explain the pettiness of the comments.
* QuoteMine: Sinister example in "Satan's Chimney", using an edited recording.
* RearWindowWitness: In "The Problem at Gallows Gate", Adam's sister Kitty witnesses a murder through a pair of high-powered binocculars during a badger watch.
* RedHerring: Being a mystery series, this is par for the course. There is, however, a tendency to play with and subvert the idea of a red herring -- clues dismissed early on as insignificant will often come back in an unexpected way. Of course, other times it is played deadly straight.
* RefugeInAudacity: Jonathan specifically states several times that the reason people fall for elaborate magic tricks and [[LockedRoomMystery locked room mysteries]] is because they're unwilling to believe that someone would go to such insane lengths to fool them.
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: In series 4, Adam Klaus does several copycat tricks inspired by those of Derren Brown and David Blaine (the originals are mentioned, so this is an in-universe example of FollowTheLeader).
* {{Roma}}: In "The Seer of the Sands" a couple pose as a romantic gypsy couple in order to better con a gullible American woman.
* RubeGoldbergHatesYourGuts: "Mother Redcap"[[spoiler: (two electrocution traps)]], "Satan's Chimney"[[spoiler: (a piston that crushes its victims)]], "The Coonskin Cap"[[spoiler: (a constricting flak jacket that suffocates the wearer)]] and "The Grinning Man"[[spoiler: (a bathtub mounted on a trapdoor that drowns the victim in a tank below)]]. To add to the mystery, all of them are deployed in [[LockedRoomMystery sealed rooms]].
* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: Jonathan in "The Scented Room", when AssholeVictim Le Fley (who had given scathing criticism to Jonathan's magic shows in the past) offers a huge financial reward for finding his missing painting.
--> '''Jonathan''': I know exactly how your painting was stolen, Mr Le Fley. I'm just not going to ''tell'' you.
** Which he is then forced into anyway, by way of victim's wife applying ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney to threaten to shut down a major performance by Adam Klaus.
* SelfFulfillingProphecy: A sad variation. An old woman is having precognitive dreams, including one involving the initials R.P. and a creature with wings. The next day, a woman is killed in a car accident (the registration number was R.P. and she drove a Jaguar (a car has wings). However, [[spoiler:the dream the woman had was about a harpy (the Greek monster) and was not precognitive at all. But because she had been going around telling everyone about them, the woman - whose name was Rebecca Philips and who was about to go on a business trip despite a terrible fear of flying - thought that it was a warning about her imminent plane trip. She was so worried and distracted that she got into a car accident on the way to the airport. If the old woman had kept quiet, the accident would have never occurred]].
* ShootTheRope: Done fantastically in Black Canary. A very decrepit old man manages to snipe the rope of someone who attempted to hang herself from at least 300 feet, and finishes off by nonchalantly saying "Well, my eyes still work."
* ShoutOut: Part of the plot of ''Satan's Chimney'' is centered around the filming of a [[ShowWithinAShow movie]] entitled ''Black Snow''. An obvious homage to the works of David Lynch, it even has a dwarf called "The Man from the World of Shadows" in a nod to TwinPeaks' Man From Another Place.
** The 1998 Christmas Special is called "BlackCanary" and even features a large statue of the DCComics character.
* SlutShaming: In the episode "Miracle on Crooked Lane", an ex-model and "professional bed-hopper" sells her story to the papers and the townsfolk shun her. She ends up [[spoiler:[[DrivenToSuicide committing suicide over it]]]].
* TheSummation: Every episode, always intercut with scenes of the crime itself being committed.
** Averted in "The Judas Tree", where all we see is Jonathan's hypothesis and the implication that it is true, quite a way before the end of the episode.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Maddy to Carla, and then Carla to Joey.
** Although the UnresolvedSexualTension common to Maddy and Carla is averted for the most part with Joey. Otherwise played straight.
* SweetieGraffiti: A clue in "Gorgon's Wood", though it wasn't carved by "sweethearts".
* TakeThat: Season 4 is a giant TakeThat to {{ITV}}. Producer Brendan Baxter makes ''crap'' television (in one case literally), is willing to manipulate any footage just to get better ratings... and at one point cheerfully mentions he's about to have lunch with MichaelGrade.
* TapOnTheHead: Played straight in "No Trace Of Tracy"... which is extremely noticable considering that in just the previous episode, someone actually died from a blow to the head.
* ThanatosGambit: [[spoiler:Andre Masson]] rigs up his suicide to make it look as though he's been murdered by one of his employees.
* ThemeSongReveal: In the episode "Satan's Chimney", [[spoiler:Allan Kallanak's first appearance shows him rehearsing his escape act to the sound of the Eurythmics' ''Missionary Man''. In hindsight, this not only gives away his identity as the killer, but his motivation as well: "don't mess with a missionary man..."]]
* TimeDelayedDeath
* ToadLicking: A hallucinogenic toad turned out to be a major plot point in one episode. The toad wasn't native to England and had been imported by a local hippie colony for this very purpose. The presence of the toad, allegedly in the prime suspect's house, was what led to Jonathan solving the case he was working on.
* TraitorShot: Used frequently with [[RedHerring suspects]], yet Maddy was instinctively good at spotting them.
* {{Tsundere}}: Maddy and Carla. Carla's ''deredere'' side is pretty much vestigial.
* TwinSwitch: Used in "The Black Canary" in which one twin takes over her sister's life after her accidental death in order to spare her family the grief. In a twist on expectations, the discovery itself ''wasn't'' a big twist - Jonathan had it figured out by the middle of the episode, and the mystery is finding out how the latter twin died (though of course, the switch played a significant part in motivation).
** Also the basis of the same character's career. The twins were magicians and most of their act was based around the fact that the audience was unaware that the magician was actually two people.
* UnreliableNarrator: When the crime is shown being committed in flashback during TheSummation, this is often just Jonathan's hypothesis rather than what actually happened - sometimes because all the witnesses are dead, or because the suspect doesn't confirm it until after he's spoken. This rarely comes up, however - the best example is in the pilot "The Wrestler's Tomb", where we see the main suspect pulling off the impossible alibi that would let her commit the crime as Jonathan explains how it could happen - [[spoiler:but at the end we find out she wasn't the killer, so she never did the acts shown in the earlier reconstruction scene. Heck, Jonathan even admits immediately after the aforementioned summation that while it's a working theory it hinges on too many random things going right to be plausible]].
* UnresolvedSexualTension: Like any good male/female detective team, Maddy and Jonathan have this in spades. {{Lampshaded}} in the first episode, when Jonathan point-blank asks Maddy if she's trying to bed him.
** Plenty of {{UST}} with Carla as well, with the added twist that between their first and second meetings, she's got married.
** Hinted at toward the end of Jonathan and Joey's first special together, when their respective romantic interests [[spoiler: end up with each other at the end.]] Other than that, notably averted for Joey as she and Jonathan operate more LikeBrotherAndSister.
*** By the time they meet again for ''The Case of the Savant's Thumb'' Jonathan is married.
* TheUnreveal: Jonathan tells Maddy who he thinks [[spoiler:Alice Spearfish's real father]] is - on a piece of paper that we don't see.
* VitriolicBestBuds: Jonathan seems pretty much incapable of forming any other type of relationship.
* TheWatson: Maddy, Carla, Joey.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Previous candidates for the role of Jonathan included Creator/RikMayall, HughLaurie (who was still being typecast as an UpperClassTwit back then) and even BillBailey.
** Hugh Laurie was actually cast at one point before the pilot was filmed, but left the project because of Jonathan's reluctance to solve crimes -- Laurie couldn't find the character's motivation for ''actually'' following Maddy on her investigations. Somewhat ironic, given that Series/{{House}} is something of a DrJerk Jonathan Creek - obsessed with puzzles, not so much with people.
** Rik Mayall did have a guest appearance as a brilliant and hammy detective who rivalled Jonathan's skill, and Bill Bailey was a terrible aspiring magic trick creator that ended up working with Jonathan for Klaus.
* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic -- [[invoked]] In "Angel Hair", Jonathan works out the core mystery pretty quickly but keeps schtum about it while he tries to work out the details. To help Carla along, he writes two proverbs on a piece of paper and she spends half the episode trying to find any hidden meaning in it. After spending hours agonising over it, her husband leans over and casually notes that it's [[spoiler:the first two lines to Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind", in the wrong order]].
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: In the episode "The Tailor's Dummy" there is an entire subplot about Kenny helping the Mafia kidnap attractive women. Jonathan demands that Kenny get them out of trouble, or he'll go to the police, but he and Carla are imprisoned in one of the theatre's props by the men before this can happen. Kenny is last seen being dragged away by the Mafia, and neither he nor the women are ever mentioned again.
** From "The Judas Tree": whatever happened to the man in the grass? Did anyone ever find him, or did he die out there? The ending implies that [[spoiler:he was a fragment of Emily's suppressed memory about her murder]].
** A few episodes in the second series show that Adam has a pet Bengal tiger. It disappears completely after series 2.
* WhatHaveWeEar: Jonathan and Adam do this on a few occasions (but Jonathan draws the line when Adam asks him to design a trick that allows him to pull a postage stamp from under the Queen's tongue).
* WillTheyOrWontThey: Maddy and Jonathan. They're on the edge of dating for entire seasons, without ''actually'' dating. They share a snog and a grope occasionally, but inevitably, one of them then immediately cocks it up. They have platonic sleepovers, Jonathan irons Maddy's bras, Maddy gets intensely possessive every time Jonathan has a date with someone else, and they still don't manage to actually have sex. [[spoiler: They eventually do. Turns out it was a bad idea.]]
* XanatosRoulette:
** The plot of "The Judas Tree" hinges on the assumptions that Emily [[spoiler:wouldn't just quit her job]], that the local vicar [[spoiler:wouldn't be asked to identify the body]], and that the police [[spoiler:wouldn't do a tox screen on the body. Or a paternity test. Or look up the family of Emily's previous victim.]] See the [[Headscratchers/JonathanCreek Headscratchers page]].
** The first explanation Jonathan gives for how the murder could have been done in "The Wrestler's Tomb" is also a XanatosRoulette...[[DefiedTrope which is why Jonathan dismisses it as too unlikely to be plausible]].
* YouGotMurder: Occurs in [[spoiler:"The House of Monkeys"]] in which a self-addressed envelope laced with poison is sent to the victim. On licking the flap, he trips out on hallucinogenic drugs and manages to [[spoiler:impale himself on a sword]].
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