Here’s an improvised audio essay on the changing attitudes towards conspiracy theorists as reflected in one character arc through several years of The Brokenwood Mysteries. Listen below or scroll down for the transcript.

Christopher Kramer is a local conspiracy theorist in Brokenwood that has an interesting character arc. From a valuable witness in his first appearance, his second appearance, he is both the victim of and a suspect in the murder of an unethical doctor, and in his third appearance, he becomes a villain.

And this is important in general for the world building of The Brokenwood Mysteries that sets it apart from other cozy mysteries. So I’m not picking on the character of Christopher Kramer. I think that the actor Milo Cawthorn does a stellar job of playing him.

It’s just that the third episode marked the point where I noticed that this character changes with the way that society views people who, let’s say, are into high weirdness or alternative facts.

He starts out in a 2017 episode, a real standout episode called As If Nothing Had Happened.

And he is one of many characters through the years that seems to be there just to play off of the character of Sam Breen, because it’s funny to see Sam Breen, who’s the third in command at the police station in the detective department, the CIB. It’s funny to see him get frustrated. It was comedic, for example, the actor to react in the way that he did.

And so Christopher Kramer was a conspiracy theorist who accidentally witnessed what he thought was aliens and Batman on the night of one of his neighbors being murdered.

Only, he was seeing a guy in a Batman mask, and he had a photograph of it, so it ended up being valuable information. But he did things like making Sam Breen get sprayed with ozone before he could come in his house and scanning him for negative energy.

But, you know, you just think it’s a kook, and we all enjoyed The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen, and everybody’s got a conspiracy theorist in your family.

Then he returns in a year, and it’s a sadder part that is called The Dark Angel, and there’s a doctor who had been abusing some patients in the mental institution in Brokenwood, and he just got out of jail. And someone invited him to the old closed-down institution to murder him.

And all of the former patients, including Christopher Kramer, were invited there to witness it by someone that they believed that they could trust.

So it still played a little for laughs. It’s more a couple of other characters frustrating Sam Breen this time around, but Kramer is there.

Ooh, maybe they named him Kramer because of Kramer and Seinfeld. I just keep thinking that everyone watches Seinfeld.

But the third time he comes back, this is where I really noticed the devolution of Christopher Kramer. It was the season 12, episode 1 this year, which was called They’re Out There.

All right, and it covers a UFO cult coming to Brokenwood, of which Christopher Kramer is a high-up member, and now he becomes a villain.

And he doesn’t—what breaks my heart is he keeps repeating that he’s a fully integrated member of society to the detectives who knew that he had been in a mental institution in the past.

And for those of us who have been mentally unwell, there come times when you think that you’ve beaten it, even though it’s a chemical feature in your brain that you may not ever be able to beat. You have good times and bad times, and I certainly have felt like I was a fully integrated member of society and then been reminded that I’m not.

But I didn’t do what Christopher Kramer did when he felt that he was being ignored, and it was such a turn for the character.

I thought, why did they do this?

Even the detective seemed sad to have to arrest him, and the local, sort of over-the-top defense attorneys are not in attendance. And you would think that Dennis Buchanan would have been because he’s a champion of mental health and the rights of the mentally ill.

But we don’t know what’s to become of Christopher Kramer.

As I said, this is important to the world building. The Brokenwood Mysteries is set apart from all the other cozy mysteries that I enjoy in that the whole town seems to recur in a lot of shows.

Like Midsomer Murders, you get people coming back, same actor, different character, or you get main cast members coming back to visit for a wedding or an undercover assignment.

But in Brokenwood, we know the butcher, we know the mayor, we know a psychiatrist, the preacher, a wedding planner, you know, a psychic. The list goes on.

And these people fill different roles throughout the time that they recur, and it really just immerses you. It keeps you coming back. It’s funny and dramatic, mostly funny.

But there are the sad times, and Christopher Kramer being arrested at the end of episode 1, season 12, is one of those times.

But then I thought about the way that we’ve evolved as a society to look at conspiracy theorists. You know, at first, he was a kook, and it was funny, and then he came back and he was a victim, and the third time he became very dangerous.

And that’s what we’ve seen play out in the last 10 years, especially with COVID. And I know that people have PTSD after COVID. But the way in which the scope that people have rejected facts is extraordinary.

When you think that life progresses, that society progresses in one direction, and you see things starting to regress.

And I’m not sure that it was the intention of the showrunners to have this arc, but that’s the way I read it, that we’re the conspiracy theories aren’t funny anymore for the most part.

And I’m not saying, you know, that I don’t believe that there’s something out there, because statistically, how could we be the only people alone in the universe?

But as Sam Breen said, you know, do I think they’re coming to Brokenwood?

Aside from the fact that it’s a fictional town, no. I’m not sure that I do, and certainly not to a golf course where there’s an angry lady in a pig digging up truffles and a guy throwing a discus.

But that’s all part of the charm.

You can choose to look at the quirks, or you can choose to maybe read something into this anyway.

Christopher is not the first to go from witness to villain, and notably Trudy, whose brother owns the various bars in town, started as a reluctant witness, then became a murderer, then became an informant to get out of prison, then beat up a bank robber, and now she runs a bar.

And she’s mostly lost her attitude. Haven’t heard her say, “I’m no snitch,” but lately, she just tells them what she sees when she can be helpful.

So there’s a possibility that Christopher Kramer will return, and I certainly hope so.

So let me know in the comments if you like this show as much as I do, and if you have a favorite recurring side character.

Bonus points if it’s Miss Marlow’s cheese rolls, and have a good night.