Inspector Morse - Season 1 (1987)

The Jaguar was a write-off, which had come off The Sweeney. You could see the road through the car floor.

I'd forgotten that DeBryn (Peter Woodthorpe) is the later incarnation of Endeavour's James Bradshaw. James Grout is Strange. We take it that his marriage to Joan didn't take. The fact that her parents and brother moved 'a long way away' mustn't have helped.

Looks like it was shot on celluloid. They must have been using some small cameras to do those pans in and out of the car.

I just learned in the Endeavour documentary that the London Metropolitan Orchestra recorded every Morse / Lewis / Endeavour orchestral score. Which is an interesting claim, as it wasn't founded until 1994. Again - call Morse. Barrington Pheloung is the constant throughout the whole series.

Appropriately enough the Duchess of Duke Street's Gemma Jones is in the first one (no pilot, you notice - straight into a 3-film series one). It's The Dead of Jericho, written by Anthony Minghella (from Dexter's fifth novel) and directed by Alastair Reid. With Patrick Troughton, the same year he died.

It seems Morse may favour a lime marmalade for breakfast.

Morse / Thaw encountering Colin Dexter for the first time

Silent World of Nicholas Quinn is an enjoyable story of a University group which sets foreign examinations - is someone leaking the answers? Cast includes Barbara Flynn, Michael Gough (who turns out to be Morse's crossword nemesis 'Dedalus'), Clive Swift, Roger Lloyd Pack.

Evidence of Lewis' bouncing off Morse with humour:

Morse: "You know Morse's Law. There's always a fifty-fifty chance that the man who found the body did the deed."
Lewis: "Well I was going to arrest him on the spot, sir, but I thought I'd let you have the pleasure."

Barbara Flynn's character: "I like to be in complete command of myself when working."
Morse: "Really? I like to let go. I always drink at lunchtime. It helps my imagination."

Things bog down somewhat with Service of All the Dead, adapted by Julian Mitchell. It was rather too churchy for us, had a large number of confusing murders and a not especially convincing denouement. Worse is that Morse is behaving like a desperate and love-sick child over Angela Morant, even though he suspects she's with another man - a Camel-smoking man, no less. Nice cinematography though, by Clive Tickner.

Also reference to Sherlock Holmes, 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time'. 

"The dog did nothing in the night-time."
"That was the curious incident."

It's from the short story 'Silver Blaze'.

Morse's watch, a Jean Pierre, I think, couldn't track down the model: