There are understandable misgivings when television companies resurrect the ratings winners of yesterday. Morse fans will have been champing at the bit for the Great Return, even without their hero, but he wasn't everyone's cup of tea. Germaine Greer once dismissed the series airily as 'tourist TV', presumably because it refused to be bossy or try to improve us, an objective close to the heart of so many unhappy females.
I myself came late to the series (the early nineteen-nineties) and have been a fan ever since. Morse wasn't perfect. For all the guff about 'intelligent writing' it dropped quite a few clangers. In one episode the fusty old grammarian asks Lewis to keep him informed of developments in a case by saying, 'We'll have lunch and you can appraise of your findings'. Morse simply wouldn't say that. So why wasn't Colin Dexter allowed script approval? Blunders - easily avoidable ones too - occurred in other episodes, on one occasion even blurring the proper distinction between 'infer' and 'imply'. This might sound petty, but Morse wouldn't think so - and isn't that the point? Fictional characters must have credibility. Schoolboy howlers don't help.
Of course last night all the nit-picking was put to one side as we sat back, hoping against hope to be entertained by the team in the way we've come to expect. We were. As another reviewer points out, Lewis' character is here, of necessity, fleshed out, endowed with a depth a role as cipher for his old boss' deliberations and a few throwaway references to 'Val and the kids' could never achieve.
The device employed - loss - proved an effective contrivance. Once there had been the loner - and lonely (he never got the girl) - Morse and the dedicated family man, his Sergeant. In this episode the understudy steps into the old man's shoes. Suddenly it is Lewis who is alone. And it is Lewis who finds himself having to adjust to strange, possibly disagreeable policing methods and - ironically for a former IT enthusiast; recall his expression when Hathway casually uses a mobile to e-mail Chief Superintendent Innocent - constantly changing technology. Lewis has 'the kids' but they have 'grown and flown'. Lewis too now goes home to an empty house, just like his old boss. And like Morse he needs the job. The politics exasperate him but, without it, he wouldn't know what to do with himself.
The casting in this episode is quite astute. Laurence Fox is excellent as Hathaway, a character presumably intended to represent the new breed of university-educated copper (socially sensitive but, here at least, without his modern counterpart's aversion to feeling collars that don't belong to errant motorists, who don't fight back as a rule, unlike real criminals). There is a nice, sympathetic turn from Claire Holman as the pathologist, while Jemma Redgrave is always convincing as Trudi, the woman haunted by the knowledge that much of the family's distress could have been avoided had she plumped for the simple expedient of not betraying her husband. Rebecca Front is the inevitable female boss, Chief Superintendent Jean Innocent. We can put up with that because she's great looking. I mean you would wouldn't you lads?
As usual the university architecture sets the tone for the piece (Jesus College, yes, but also some nice shots at the gates of Trinity Hall). But it is Michael Maloney, as Ivor Dennison, the utterly plausible maths professor with a disabled wife and a professional reputation to maintain, who steals the show. Maloney is a superb actor, and here he gives it all he has, staging a death scene that manages to be understated and attention-seeking all at the same time. And of course since his transgressions are slight we are naturally sympathetic throughout. After all he dispatches an objectionable student or two (as if there is another kind) and, albeit by mistake, a man who cuckolded the fellow who gave him a home and - a far worse offence in New Britain - happens to be very, very rich indeed. I'd make better sense of the programme if I could just understand where the crime is in all of this....
I myself came late to the series (the early nineteen-nineties) and have been a fan ever since. Morse wasn't perfect. For all the guff about 'intelligent writing' it dropped quite a few clangers. In one episode the fusty old grammarian asks Lewis to keep him informed of developments in a case by saying, 'We'll have lunch and you can appraise of your findings'. Morse simply wouldn't say that. So why wasn't Colin Dexter allowed script approval? Blunders - easily avoidable ones too - occurred in other episodes, on one occasion even blurring the proper distinction between 'infer' and 'imply'. This might sound petty, but Morse wouldn't think so - and isn't that the point? Fictional characters must have credibility. Schoolboy howlers don't help.
Of course last night all the nit-picking was put to one side as we sat back, hoping against hope to be entertained by the team in the way we've come to expect. We were. As another reviewer points out, Lewis' character is here, of necessity, fleshed out, endowed with a depth a role as cipher for his old boss' deliberations and a few throwaway references to 'Val and the kids' could never achieve.
The device employed - loss - proved an effective contrivance. Once there had been the loner - and lonely (he never got the girl) - Morse and the dedicated family man, his Sergeant. In this episode the understudy steps into the old man's shoes. Suddenly it is Lewis who is alone. And it is Lewis who finds himself having to adjust to strange, possibly disagreeable policing methods and - ironically for a former IT enthusiast; recall his expression when Hathway casually uses a mobile to e-mail Chief Superintendent Innocent - constantly changing technology. Lewis has 'the kids' but they have 'grown and flown'. Lewis too now goes home to an empty house, just like his old boss. And like Morse he needs the job. The politics exasperate him but, without it, he wouldn't know what to do with himself.
The casting in this episode is quite astute. Laurence Fox is excellent as Hathaway, a character presumably intended to represent the new breed of university-educated copper (socially sensitive but, here at least, without his modern counterpart's aversion to feeling collars that don't belong to errant motorists, who don't fight back as a rule, unlike real criminals). There is a nice, sympathetic turn from Claire Holman as the pathologist, while Jemma Redgrave is always convincing as Trudi, the woman haunted by the knowledge that much of the family's distress could have been avoided had she plumped for the simple expedient of not betraying her husband. Rebecca Front is the inevitable female boss, Chief Superintendent Jean Innocent. We can put up with that because she's great looking. I mean you would wouldn't you lads?
As usual the university architecture sets the tone for the piece (Jesus College, yes, but also some nice shots at the gates of Trinity Hall). But it is Michael Maloney, as Ivor Dennison, the utterly plausible maths professor with a disabled wife and a professional reputation to maintain, who steals the show. Maloney is a superb actor, and here he gives it all he has, staging a death scene that manages to be understated and attention-seeking all at the same time. And of course since his transgressions are slight we are naturally sympathetic throughout. After all he dispatches an objectionable student or two (as if there is another kind) and, albeit by mistake, a man who cuckolded the fellow who gave him a home and - a far worse offence in New Britain - happens to be very, very rich indeed. I'd make better sense of the programme if I could just understand where the crime is in all of this....