Inspector Morse - Season 3 (1989)

Not their flagship Christmas Day broadcast this time - fans had to wait till January 4. (ITV instead went for a seasonal special of London's Burning! BBC premiered Silverado. Huh.)

Dexter is now writing story outlines. Julian Mitchell wrote this again. Ghost in the Machine pits Morse against the aristocracy in the shape of Patricia Hodge. It's quite a straightforward one, this - comparatively - as we've a smaller cast of characters to play chess with. Her husband's found dead. Suspects are: the gardener (Michael Thomas), the housekeeper (Patsy Byrne), the au pair (Irina Brook), the au pair's boyfriend (John Elmes) and a little girl (Rainbow Dench, no relation). We can probably discount the little girl. Lewis is disappointed the massive country pile has no butler. Various college types are put out by it all. (Didn't recognise John Cater as a Dean.) Claire Skinner's in it for two seconds.

Max has suffered a minor stroke so we're treated to a new no-nonsense pathologist, Dr Grayling Russell, played by Amanda Hillwood. She's reluctant to divulge her first name - so's Morse.

It's only Wrotham Park again! (Last seen in Terminus.)

We're solidly back amongst the academics in The Last Enemy. Peter Buckman wrote it. A dismembered corpse is found in the river and it links to various college types, including Barry Foster.

Plagiarism and old-fashioned revenge play their parts.

"You really like him, don't you?" Russell asks Lewis. He doesn't really answer the question other than to reply "He's the best there is!"

"How do you know I'm a nice girl?"

She's also understandably annoyed when Morse keeps referring to her as "My dear".

The Grump manages to get a couple of dates - an especially funny one to a Jamaican restaurant complete with dub reggae... which I'm sure he just loved.

Anthony Minghella again wrote Deceived by Flight, the cricket one. Old friend, the briefly appearing Daniel Massey, is murdered. Did radio presenter wife Sharon Maughan do it? (I'm asking myself, actually - I can't remember already.) Lewis gets to meet another old friend of 'Pagan', Norman Rodway. With Nicky Henson, Jane Booker, Bryan Pringle, Nathaniel Parker and an unspeakable radio manager Stephen Moore.

And Alma Cullen's The Secret of Bay 5 - man found murdered in his car. Directed by Jim Goddard.