Monday 4 March 2019

Inspector Morse - Season 3 (1989)

Ghost in the Machine d. Herbert Wise (I, Claudius), scr. Julian Mitchell, from an idea by..

Do we buy this one? An aristocrat is murdered by his wife because she finds a fairly tasteful nude photo of the nanny... Mm. I don't know, but the Morse-Lewis repartee is going well with banter over use of grammar. And when Lewis manages to find a way into the attic and Morse looks at him with disdain it reminded me of Laurel & Hardy. Max has had a stroke so the stand-in is A Very Peculiar Practice's Amanda Hillwood. (Why was Max written out? He's a great character. I loved the background detail of him in affectionate conversation with the coppers at crime scenes.)

I am an idiot because the housekeeper is not Megs Jenkins but Patsy Byrne (from Blackadder).
Patricia Hodge, Charles Rose, Bernard Lloyd (rather good as a professor), Michael Godley and a particularly wooden Michael Thomas as the groundsman. Irina Brook was born in Paris, John Cater is the dean. And yes, that was Claire Skinner right at the beginning.

It's the Gosford Park house. The painting is by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 'In the Tepidarium'.

The Last Enemy d. James Scott, scr. Peter Buckman. Based on 'The Riddle of the Third Mile' (1983) - though they are apparently very different.

I'm not sure these people would really scream when they see bodies - particularly this one, which is floating in the canal and difficult to make out (turns out it's missing head, hands and feet). A college professor with a London flat has gone missing - but it turns out they weren't the same body. Barry Foster is a roguish professor who has stolen his student's work. he is shot with a Welrod, a quiet gun made by the SOE.

We learn that Morse didn't complete his degree because of a woman.

Deceived by Flight d. Anthony Simmons (The Optimists of Nine Elms), scr. by Anthony Minghella - and it's one of the better episodes. Loved the writing of the opening with various radio stations and the Test Match coming in and out of play, signalling the story ahead. It's the episode in which Lewis goes undercover as a Porter so he can infiltrate the cricket team - which gives him the opportunity to address Morse as 'Pagan' (the first time we've heard this). Funny scene in which Morse begins to warm to cricket. Good sneaky plot ends up involving drug smuggling.

Interesting cast too with Daniel Massey (much on TV), Norman Rodway, Sharon Maughan, Nicky Henson, Nathaniel Parker, Jane Booker, Bryan Pringle (porter) and Stephen Moore, as a particularly unsympathetic radio producer.


"We can't go on meeting like this, Lewis."
We never learn who fire-bombed the gay bookshop and killed three people.

The Secret of Bay 5 d. Jim Goddard (Out), scr. Alma Cullen from 'The Secret of Annexe 3' (1986).

Relationship between Morse and pathologist Amanda Hillwood is warming up. Otherwise it's an unfortunately poorly acted episode involving a man in the woods, an insurance firm and over-emoting women.

Haven't spotted Dexter once this series.

Interestingly, the supervising editor on this series was Laurence Méry-Clark.

Somewhere in this season (I think) Lewis impresses Morse by knowing that 'The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them' is Hemingway.

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