Inspector Morse (TV series)

Infobox Television
show_name = Inspector Morse


caption =
format = Drama
picture_format = 4:3
runtime = 1 - 2 hours
(including adverts)
creator = Colin Dexter,
Tony Warren
starring = John Thaw,
Kevin Whately,
James Grout
channel = ITV
country = United Kingdom
first_aired = January 6, 1987
last_aired = November 15, 2000
num_series =
num_episodes = 33
list_episodes = List of Inspector Morse episodes
producer = Zenith,
Central Independent Television,
Carlton Television
related = "Lewis"
imdb_id = 0092379
tv_com_id =

"Inspector Morse" is a television series based on Colin Dexter’s popular novels about Chief Inspector Morse. The series, shown on Britain’s ITV network, was made by Zenith Productions for Central Independent Television. The series comprises 33 two-hour episodes (100 minutes excluding commercials) — twenty more episodes than there are novels — produced between 1987 and 2000. The final episode was adapted from the final novel.

Production

Morse was played by John Thaw, and the faithful Detective Sergeant Lewis by Kevin Whately. The character of Lewis was transformed from the elderly Welshman and ex-boxer of the novels to a much younger Geordie police sergeant with a family, as a foil to Morse’s cynical streak. Dexter makes a cameo appearance in all but three of the episodes. The series remains popular and is frequently repeated on ITV1 and ITV3 in Britain.

John Thaw had a special appreciation of the fact that Morse was different from classic characters such as James Bond and Sherlock Holmes. Morse was brilliant but he wasn’t always right. He often arrested the wrong person or came to the wrong conclusion. As a result, unlike many classic sleuths, Morse does not always simply ‘bust’ his culprit; ironic circumstances have the case end and the crime brought to him. Also, Morse was a romantic but had little success in meeting women.

Morse is a character whose talents and intelligence were being wasted in positions which fail to match his abilities. Several references are made to the fact that Morse would have been promoted above and beyond Chief Inspector at Thames Valley CID, but his cynicism and lack of ambition, coupled also to veiled hints that he may have made enemies in high places, frustrate his progression despite his Oxford connections.

Morse is a highly credible detective and plausible human being. His penchant for drinking, his life filled with difficult personal relationships, and his negligence with his health, however, make him a more tragic character than previous classic sleuths.

Morse’s eventual death in the final episode "The Remorseful Day" is caused by heart problems exacerbated by heavy drinking, differing from the literary character’s diabetes-related demise.

Morse interests

Morse had 'highbrow' passions: music (especially opera), poetry, art, classics, English beer, classic cars, cryptic crossword puzzles. When Morse is seen at home he is usually listening to music, drinking beer, solving a crossword, or reading classic literature, but many of his cases also touch on his interests; in many, these help him solve the case.

In "The Death of the Self", the episode ends with Morse seeing one of the characters, an opera singer recovering from a long absence through stage-fright, make her 'comeback' performance at the amphitheatre in Verona whilst in "Twilight of the Gods" he investigates the life of one of his idols Gwladys Probert, a world-famous soprano. In "Who Killed Harry Field?", the murder victim is a painter while he researches the pre-Raphaelite movement to aid his investigations in "The Way Through the Woods".

In several episodes, Morse's crossword-solving ability helps him to spot where people have changed identities by creating a new name which is an anagram. In "Masonic Mysteries" he is maliciously implicated in the murder of a woman when his Times newspaper is placed in the victim's house, with his handwriting in the crossword. In the same episode, the writer names Morse's old Inspector from when he was a detective sergeant as 'Macnutt' in homage to D.S. Macnutt, better known as the famous and influential Observer setter 'Ximenes'.

In "The Sins of the Fathers" he investigates a murder in a brewery-owning family while in the first episode, "The Dead of Jericho", he compares the life of a dead woman with that of Jocasta, the mother of Oedipus. The same episode also introduced his Jaguar Mark 2 car (which is damaged at the start and end of the story). His interest in classic cars is also explored in "Driven to Distraction" where he suspects a car-salesman of murder.

In "Cherubim and Seraphim", he investigates the suicide of his niece and discusses with her English teacher about her interest in the poet Sylvia Plath, who also killed herself; the teacher initially accuses Morse of thinking that because Plath committed suicide, her poetry shouldn't be taught in schools lest the pupils do the same.

Music

The theme and incidental music for the series was written by Barrington Pheloung and utilises a motif based on the Morse code for "M.O.R.S.E." (-- --- ·-· ··· ·).

In the documentary entitled "The Mystery of Morse", Pheloung states that he occasionally spelled out the name of the killer in Morse code in the music, or alternatively spelled out the name of another character as a red herring.

"Inspector Morse" uses incidental music much less frequently than many other television detective programmes such as "Midsomer Murders" or "Agatha Christie's Poirot"; in the earlier episodes, it is rarely more than the occasional minimalist long note on a violin. This contrasts with the regular use of 'real world' music that would be heard by the characters; the choice of classical music excerpts is reflected by the success of several collections of ‘music from the Morse series’ recordings released on CD.

The TV series and the CDs play some of Morse’s favorites, Mozart, Schubert, and Wagner.

Locations

* Beaumont College (in the TV episodes ‘The Last Enemy’ and ‘The Infernal Serpent’) and Lonsdale College (in "The Riddle of the Third Mile", the book on which that episode was based) are both fictional Oxford colleges. The real Brasenose College and Exeter College were used to represent Lonsdale, while Corpus Christi was used for Beaumont. Both fictional names are from real streets in Oxford.

Legacy

* In November 2005, the Jaguar Mark 2 car (with number plate 248 RPA) used in the television series sold for more than £100,000. [cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4485816.stm|title=Morse Jaguar makes over £100,000|date=30 November 2005|publisher=British Broadcasting Corporation]

pinoff series

A pilot episode, "Lewis", starring Kevin Whately as the now-promoted Inspector Lewis went into production in July 2005. This pilot was broadcast on ITV on 29 January, 2006, and in the US it aired on PBS on July 31 of the same year under the title "Inspector Lewis". A further three episodes were broadcast on ITV in February and March 2007, and a second series (of 4 episodes) was broadcast in February and March 2008. A third series is currently being filmed (at June 2008).

ee also

* List of Inspector Morse episodes

References

External links

* [http://www.morsetv.com Granada International's Official "Inspector Morse" website]
* [http://www.inspectormorse.co.uk Official "Inspector Morse" website]
*itv.com|id=inspectormorse|title="Inspector Morse"
* [http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/series/9084 "Inspector Morse"] at the British Film Institute
*Screenonline TV title|id=523493|title=Inspector Morse
* [http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/I/htmlI/inspectormor/inspectormor.htm "Inspector Morse"] at the MBC's Encyclopedia of Television
*imdb title|id=0092379|title=Inspector Morse
* [http://epguides.com/InspectorMorse/guide.shtml "Inspector Morse" episode guide]