Well, I started watching Inspector Morse now and then on Netflix, and then I discovered the sequel series Lewis and the new prequel series Endeavour, and I’ve been very happy with all of them.
But now I seem to have watched all of the episodes that are available so far, and I’m getting Thames Valley Police withdrawal symptoms. What other series might I like while I’m waiting for new episodes to become available?
(I also like David Suchet as Poirot and Peter Davison as Albert Campion, if that’s any help.)
(And while I’m asking, does anyone know how I can see the pilot episode of Lewis in the US other than buying the entire $58 DVD boxed set on Amazon?)
Have you seen Inspector Lynley? How about Foyle’s War? I’m a huge fan of Lewis, although not so much of the original Morse, and those series seem to have the same tone to me.
And of course if you haven’t seen Sherlock, you must, not so much because it’s similar to those series, but just because it’s one of the best things ever.
There are not going to be any more Lewises made, you know. On the last show, Lewis announced his retirement and Hathaway said he was resigning from the force. I think thre will probably be more Endeavors, though.
Incidentally, all these shows come from the British commercial broadcasting company ITV, who seem to go in for this sort of gently paced, relatively “cosy” detective dramas than the BBC is. There are many other such ITV series, some of which you may like. See if you can access their page at ITVX - The Streaming Home For All Of ITV And So Much More! You may find a lot of what is there is blocked, though, if you are not accessing it from Britain. Almost certainly you will not be able to watch the free “catch-up” streams. However, they also have a scheme where you can view episodes (by streaming video) for a small (very reasonable fee). I do not know why they would refuse to take money from Americans, so maybe you could do it.
Can’t answer that for you, but that episode is well worth looking for. We have the entire (for now) set, and the pilot episode is very good. Characters and backstories are established nicely. One example being that Dr. Hobson was in the Morse series (same character, same actress), so Lewis already knows her.
To be fair, series 7 was supposed to be the last, or at least last-ish. Laurence Fox and Billie Piper were moving their family to Hollywood to break into the industry, which sounds like a really terrible idea. Anyway, I am glad that for whatever reason they’re making an eighth series. I could watch Inspector Lewis all day.
As your linked article indicates, this news came out shortly after the “final” episode of Lewis aired here in the States. Really looking forward to it, but also hope they don’t jump the shark; that last episode wrapped up the saga very nicely, and may prove to be a hard act to follow.
Also, Lauren Fox was practically a no-show in the next-to-last episode, appearing only briefly in scenes that looked to have been flown in. I wondered at the time if it was “character fatigue” on his part. Shortly thereafter I read the series had wrapped because both Fox and Kevin Whately had declared their intentions to move on, only to be coaxed back for two more shows.
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You can, and I strongly recommend it. My wife and I got the surprisingly low-priced “complete except for the next two episodes” DVD box. (Or at least the UK set was cheap, from Amazon UK, and has excellent subtitling; We have a universal DVD player.) Watched the Pilot which we’d never seen before, and immediately embarked on a Lewispalooza. It’s wonderful, even though certain plot devices become conspicuous when watching the episodes in close succession.
Thanks everybody! AND I found a cheaper Lewis DVD set with pilot+series 1 only, so I’m good to go with that. Still accepting suggestions for other such shows; thanks for the ITV tipoff!
Have we had a Morse/Lewis/Endeavour thread in this forum recently? I found this one from last July but it seems to predate the news about the new Lewis series.
I wish Netflix had more Inspector Lynley. Foyle’s War definitely.
Prime Suspect was rather good, I recall. Haven’t seen it in years, though. An unsuitable job for a woman is another I remember liking. How about Life on Mars? The ending was a half asser… Still, freaking great series. The Lakes as well.
Rose Tyler’s second Doctor, David Tennant (the Tenth Doctor), is married to Georgia Moffett, the daughter of Peter Davison, who played the Fifth Doctor.
Have you seen ‘Jonathan Creek’? It’s more comic than the others but charming, clever and very British. Alan Davies stars as a magician’s assistant who winds up solving a lot of ‘impossible crime’ type cases.
I am an inveterate addict of all Britcrime shows, and Jonathan Creek is one of my faves.
I really enjoyed Scott and Bailey. It features 2 female detectives (bit of a rarity in British TV programs) in the Manchester Metropolitan Police’s Murder Investigation Unit.
My local PBS station showed about 3 episodes and went back to repeating their endless showings of As Time Goes By. Fortunately, I was able to order the DVDs from Amazon to see the rest of the series. I recommend it.
New Tricks is pretty good. As in “you can’t teach an old dog…” It features three retired police detectives,
co-opted into a cold cases unit. The curmugeonly one, the still chasing women one and the frankly weird guy are shepherded by a young(ish) female inspector, who once once a rising star until she accidentally shot a dog. She might have been forgiven for shooting a person but (this is Britain) a dog, never.
There are ten or eleven series now so plenty to get your teeth into. However pretty much all of of the cast has been replaced and I’m not too sure about the new guys…
If you like small town police shows, you could try Vera or Shetland. They’re both based on books by Anne Cleeves. Douglas Henshall was also in Silence and Collision both of which were not bad.
There’s a series running now called Happy Valley that’s pretty good. There are also a few episodes of Jack Taylor (Irish police) available on Netflix.