Like most series, the creative artistry was best, IMHO, in the first 3-5 seasons. Back then they would shoot in various English towns, outdoors. By the time John Nettles was leaving, they had begun to shoot in studio, in a mock police station. It was getting 10%+ of the air time. I never warmed to the second Barnaby, thought Sykes the dog hokey, and tired of the endless changes in supporting sidekicks. I dropped cable so stopped following it, though I did catch a few episodes on DVD. It became formulaic, the writers stretched. There's only so much you can do with characters and plots. Odd witch cults and oddball murderers. I sometimes watch old episodes, "Electric Vendetta". I like to watch Wallender too, even if they used English actors and don't pronounce things like Swedes do.

YMMV, of course. The first Barnaby's daughter, who gave me a headache in my eye every time she appeared, may have affected my opinion that the series improved after Season 13.

We saw season 23 a year ago. At the very least. I read the description of the episodes and yes, they're the ones we saw.
Either on BritBox or Acorn, we have both and I sometimes get confused what's on what.

I'll watch it, but it it's getting stale