"It's the Last Thing You Want to Hear"

"Time Waits for Norman."
An episode of Jonathan Creek.
1998. 50 minutes.

Alibi-breaking: For the Great Detectives it comes with the job:

It begins when an employee of a burger joint returns the wallet of her husband, which he left behind, but that's highly unlikely because: a) Norman is a vegetarian and b) he was in New York at the time the man says he was eating a hamburger in the city. The man's story is on the threshold of convincibility, but Norman's employer confirms that he attended an early morning meeting.

A most singular problem, if you have to believe the evidence. Norman had a mere seven hours to hop on a flight back to the UK, to apparently enjoy a burger at his leisure, and hurried back to Manhattan in time for an important meeting. — TomCat, BENEATH THE STAINS OF TIME (October 19, 2012)

Resources:
- No spoilers HERE, HERE, and HERE, but there are some HERE.

The show's [Jonathan Creek] chief theme was the same one expressed by Sherlock Holmes in his aphorism: "Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." 

Jonathan [Creek] 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." — TV Tropes ("Series: Jonathan Creek") [NOTE: TV Tropes has wisely obscured their SPOILERS, such that you must intentionally reveal them yourself.]

Other resources:
- From TV Tropes HERE, HERE, and HERE, and, concerning another magician-detective, AT THE SCENE OF THE CRIME HERE.
- TomCat at BENEATH THE STAINS OF TIME has other articles about Jonathan Creek HERE, and ONTOS has remarked on the series HERE.

Category: Detective fiction