First viewed : January 1987
I wasn't a great fan of this when it started and I think I saw most of it through repeats in the nineties. I thought if John Thaw wanted to do another police detective series then it should be as Jack Regan, older and possibly wiser but still in and around "the manor " ,not poncing around Oxford listening to classical music in a fancy old Jaguar. I found his attempt at an upper class accent particularly aggravating.
The series was liberally based on the novels by Colin Dexter; the Lewis character as played by Kevin Whately was completely different from the man described in the books. There were originally seven seasons of 3-5 episodes between 1987 and 1993 then Thaw went off to do Cavanagh Q.C. probably to the relief of Dexter who was struggling to keep pace with the series. Thereafter, there was one episode per year until the character was killed off in 2000. There have been two spin-off series Lewis ( which may have just finished ) and Endeavour ( ongoing ),
Although I did get to like it, I don't completely endorse it. For all its high production values, I don't think it always justified its two hour length. There are only two episodes ( both from the 1992 season ) where I can recall the plot in detail, the infamous rave story directed by Danny Boyle where Morse investigates the suicide of his neice and has to brush up on what these young people are getting off on and the one where an old flame of Morse helps arrange her dying partner's suicide to frame his son-in-law whose infidelity caused his daughter's death.
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