Early series of Midsomer Murders

[Ricardothesnowman]

I know I am about 30 years late to this, but I have just started watching this.

Series 1 and 2 seem to have a gay character shoehorned into every episode. Them being gay is incidental to the plot, but always spoken about in an offensive way.

I can't tell if it's horrid old fashioned homophobia, or some type of attempt at inclusivity.

Can anyone who has been watching it for years shed some light on it for me?
Does it get better with time?

Apart from this, I'm rather enjoying it.

It does getting better and more diverse but still in a very simple way. I don’t think it’s supposed to be a very progressive show. It follows obvious changes in society rather then encourage and anticipate them.
I remember Baroness Varsi was on BBC Question time and they were discussing why all characters in Midsomer Murders were white, that it didn’t look as a real English village. She answered that in her experience it was and that if she and her DC would visit a village they would probably be the only Muslims in it. And I think she was right. It was somewhere around 2011.