We're back in Russell Lewis's capable hands, who seems to bring a warmth to the Dead of Winter. In this, we have Hathaway traumatised over his previous case, falling for girl he knew way back (Camilla Arfwedson), meeting her family he knew growing up: Richard Johnson (The Camomile Lawn, Deadlier Than the Male, The Haunting), and butler Pip Carter. Investigating a dead man on a bus (still not sure how he got on the bus!) Lewis inherits a cat, and befriends a feisty college professor Stella Gonnet (you can tell when Lewis takes to someone - he gives them warm smiles). Meanwhile there's another suspicious death, and the surviving daughter (Georgia Groome) is having problems of her own, which Hathaway immediately latches on to. Then the two detectives fall out, before one of those tense endings...
It's great stuff, the (creepy) and playful plot weaving most satisfactorily around these human elements.
Also with Nathaniel Parker (as a man who's shot twice!), Juliet Aubrey, Guy Henry, Jonathan Bailey, Gerard Horan (another detective who Lewis has to dress down).
Chris O'Dell shot the last four Morse films, seven of Lewis, Sharpe, Poirot etc.
Dark Matter d. Bille Eltringham, scr. Stephen Churchett.
One of the more routine episodes centres around a death in an astronomy, and the passing of Venus (on Friday, at 3.15).Warren Clarke is a nosy porter, Annabelle Apsion his wife (cleaner), Robert Hardy, Diana Quick, Bernard Lloyd, Andrew Hawley.
Your Sudden Death Question d. Dan Reed, scr. Alan Plater.
The direction is a little annoying at times, but this is another corker - from the title on - with Plater's trademark sardonic wit, centring around a murder at a weekend quiz hosted by Alan Davies. The murder - it turns out - interrupts Lewis and Hobson's plans to weekend at Glyndebourne (The Fairy Queen, presumably Purcell's 'semi-opera' - though earlier Lewis is listening to 'Tosca' - a much better option - did Morse leave him his music collection?) Anyway, this would be to the amusement of Hathaway, only his precious Gibson has been stolen. ('Who's Gibson?' Innocent asks at one point. 'That's a separate line of enquiry we're pursuing'.)
It was one of Plater's last screenplays (he died in the same year, aged 75). His 1994 TV film Doggin' Around with Elliott Gould as a jazz musician up North, is sadly unobtainable.
So you also get these random quiz questions arising, which must have been fun, and an interesting gallery of suspects, including a couple of old dons (Timothy West and Nicholas Farrell), a womaniser (Adam James), Ruth Gemmell and Sally Bretton, soldiers Anna Koval and Jamie Michie and the student team led by younger brother of Laurence, Jack Fox and Natalie Dew.
Falling Darkness d. Nicholas Renton, scr. Russell Lewis.
Opens in the fog (rendering surveillance useless) - the Grim Reaper in an Oxford Street is one of the first images we see - it's Halloween. What Lewis R. does again here is place our characters firmly in the story - one of Hobson's old friends from Uni is murdered, and she then seems to be in the centre of everything, cuing much anxiousness from her friend and colleague.
The beginning's great - Lewis does Halloween - makes him very human:
And - again - put your characters in danger. (Marple's never in danger.)
Niamh Cusack, Lucy Griffiths, John Sessions, Rupert Graves.
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