Inspector Morse (TV series)
Inspector Morse | |
---|---|
Murder mystery Detective fiction | |
Created by | Colin Dexter |
Based on | the novel series by Colin Dexter |
Developed by | Anthony Minghella Kenny McBain |
Starring | John Thaw Kevin Whately James Grout |
Theme music composer | Barrington Pheloung |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 7 series (1987–1993) and 5 specials (1995–2000) |
No. of episodes | 33 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer | Ted Childs |
Running time | 98–105 minutes |
Production companies | Zenith Productions Central Independent Television Carlton Television |
Original release | |
Network | ITV |
Release | 6 January 1987 15 November 2000 | –
Related | |
Lewis Endeavour |
Inspector Morse is a British
In 2018, the series was named the greatest British crime drama of all time by
It was followed by the spin-off Lewis and prequel Endeavour.
Overview
The series was made by Zenith Productions for Central Independent Television, and first shown in the UK on the ITV network of regional broadcasters. Between 1995 and 1996 the commissioning company was Carlton Television, and towards the end of the series it was a joint venture by Carlton and WGBH.
Every episode involved a new murder investigation and depicted a complete story. Writer Anthony Minghella scripted three, including the first, "The Dead of Jericho"', which aired on 6 January 1987 featuring Gemma Jones, Patrick Troughton, and James Laurenson. Its other writers included Julian Mitchell (10 episodes), Daniel Boyle (five), and Alma Cullen (four), and its directors included John Madden (four episodes), Herbert Wise (three), Peter Hammond (three), Adrian Shergold (three), and Danny Boyle (two).[2]
"Morse" is frequently repeated on the principal and subsidiary ITV channels (ITV, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4) in the UK,[3] although repeat broadcasts also aired on Channel 4 during the show's original run.[4] Repeats are also shown on television channels in other European countries and in Australia.
Episodes
Series | Episodes | Originally aired | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
First aired | Last aired | |||
1 | 3 | 6 January 1987 | 20 January 1987 | |
2 | 4 | 25 December 1987 | 22 March 1988 | |
3 | 4 | 4 January 1989 | 25 January 1989 | |
4 | 4 | 3 January 1990 | 24 January 1990 | |
5 | 5 | 20 February 1991 | 27 March 1991 | |
6 | 5 | 26 February 1992 | 15 April 1992 | |
7 | 3 | 6 January 1993 | 20 January 1993 | |
8 | 5 | 29 November 1995 | 15 November 2000 |
Cast and crew
Main characters:[2]
- John Thaw as Detective Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse
- Kevin Whately as Detective Sergeant Robbie Lewis
- James Grout as Chief Superintendent Strange
Other recurring characters:[2]
- Peter Woodthorpe as Dr Max DeBryn (pathologist) in series 1–2
- Amanda Hillwood as Dr Grayling Russell (pathologist) in series 3
- Clare Holman as Dr Laura Hobson (pathologist) in specials
Main production credits:[2]
- Kenny McBain, producer of series 1–2
- Chris Burt, producer of series 3, 7 and specials
- David Lascelles, producer of series 4–5
- Deirdre Keir, producer of series 6
- Ted Childs, executive producer
- Rebecca Eaton, American executive producer of episodes 31–33
- Laurie Greenwood, associate producer
Notable Guest Cast and Future Stars
- Patrick Troughton - The Dead of Jericho (1987)
- Clive Swift - The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn (1987)
- Barbara Flynn - The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn (1987)
- Roger Lloyd-Pack - The Silent World of Nicolas Quinn (1987)
- Simon Callow - The Wolvercote Tongue (1987)
- Liz Hurley- Last Seen Wearing (1988)
- Julia Sawalha - Last Seen Wearing (1988)
- Shirley Stelfox - Last Bus to Woodstock (1988)
- Perry Fenwick - Last Bus to Woodstock (1988)
- Robert Stephens - The Settling of the Sun (1988)
- Derek Fowlds - The Settling of the Sun (1988)
- Amanda Burton - The Settling of the Sun (1988)
- Patricia Hodge - Ghost in the Machine (1989)
- Patsy Byrne - Ghost in the Machine (1989)
- Michael Aldridge - The Last Enemy (1989)
- Geoffrey Palmer - The Infernal Serpent (1990)
- Ian McDiarmid - Masonic Mysteries (1990)
- Mark Strong - Masonic Mysteries (1990)
- John Bird - The Sins of the Fathers (1990)
- Freddie Jones - Who Killed Harry Field? (1991)
- Jonny Lee Miller - Greeks Bearing Gifts (1991)
- Martin Jarvis - Greeks Bearing Gifts (1991)
- Zoe Wanamaker- Fat Chance (1991)
- Christopher Eccleston - Second Time Around (1991)
- Oliver Ford Davies - Second Time Around (1991)
- Kenneth Colley - Second Time Around (1991)
- Tom Wilkinson - The Infernal Serpent (1990)
- Jason Isaacs - Cherubim & Seraphim (1992)
- Anna Chancellor - Cherubim & Seraphim (1992)
- Ian McNeice - Cherubim & Seraphim (1992)
- Jim Broadbent - Absolute Conviction (1992)
- Richard Wilson - Absolute Conviction (1992)
- Sean Bean - Absolute Conviction (1992)
- Diana Quick - Absolute Conviction (1992)
- Sue Johnston - Absolute Conviction (1992)
- Steven Mackintosh - Absolute Conviction (1992)
- Charlotte Coleman - Happy Families (1992)
- Martin Clunes - Happy Families (1992)
- Rupert Graves - Happy Families (1992)
- Alun Armstrong - Happy Families (1992)
- Michael Kitchen - Death Of The Self (1992)
- Frances Barber - The Death of the Self (1992)
- Samantha Bond - Dead On Time (1992)
- David Haig - Dead On Time (1992)
- Adrian Dunbar - Dead On Time (1992)
- Rachel Weisz - Twilight Of The Gods (1993)
- John Gielgud - Twilight Of The Gods (1993)
- Robert Hardy - Twilight Of The Gods (1993)
- Richard Griffiths - The Day of the Devil (1993)
- Harriet Walter - The Day of the Devil (1993)
- Keith Allen - The Day of the Devil (1993)
- Brian Cox - Deadly Slumber (1993)
- Shaun Williamson - The Way Through the Woods (1995)
- Christopher Fairbank - The Way Through the Woods (1995)
- Phyllis Logan - The Daughters of Cain (1996)
- Mark McGann - Death is Now My Neighbour (1997)
- Richard Briers - Death Is Now My Neighbour (1997)
Production
This section needs additional citations for verification. (October 2013) |
This article possibly contains original research. (May 2014) |
Morse was played by John Thaw and his assistant, Detective
Thaw appreciated that Morse was different from many other classic detectives such as
Morse is a character whose talents and intelligence are being wasted in positions that fail to match his abilities. It is mentioned several times that Morse would have been promoted above and beyond
Morse is a highly credible detective and a plausible human being. His penchant for drinking, his life filled with difficult personal relationships and his negligence toward 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, although in the books his death is diabetes-related.
Inspector Morse was filmed for ITV using 16 mm film stock. Since its production, a number of releases of the show on DVD have been made using various remastered editions of the episodes in the 4:3 ratio. In recent years, ITV has overseen a high-definition restoration of the drama from the original 16 mm negatives so as to boost the HD content on ITV3 HD. Many of these HD episodes retain the original 4:3 ratio, though some of the later episodes (including the series finale) have been opened into a 16:9 widescreen frame. These more recent remastered editions have not been released on Blu-ray.[6]
Morse's interests
Morse had diverse passions: music (especially opera; Mozart and Wagner among his favourites), poetry, art, the classics, British
In "The Death of the Self", the episode ends with Morse seeing one of the characters, an opera singer recovering from a long absence due to stage fright, make her "comeback" performance at the amphitheatre in
In several episodes, Morse's crossword-solving ability helps him to spot people who have changed their identities by creating a new name using an anagram. In "Masonic Mysteries", he is maliciously implicated in the murder of a woman when his
In "The Sins of the Fathers", he investigates a murder in a brewery-owning family and, in the first episode of the series, "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 automobile, which is damaged at the beginning and the end of the story, being used to prevent the escape of the perpetrators. His interest in classic cars is also explored in "Driven to Distraction", in which he suspects a car salesman of murder. He seems to dislike Jeremy Boynton so strongly that, when he refers to Morse's own Jaguar as "she", this convinces Morse of his guilt.
In "
Music
The theme and incidental music for the series were written by
Locations
Beaumont College (in the TV episode "The Last Enemy") and Lonsdale College (in "The Riddle of the Third Mile", the book on which "The Last Enemy" was based) are both
Props
The Regency red 1960 Jaguar Mark 2 2.4L car (with number plate 248 RPA) used by Morse throughout the television series became synonymous with the main character, despite Morse's driving a Lancia in the early novels. (After the start of the TV series, the novels changed to the Jaguar, but no reference is made in the books as to why or when Morse changes cars. Howerver, Colin Dexter was impressed by the idea of the Jaguar, sugggested by John Thaw, and had the Lancia changed to a Jaguar in subquent reprints of his stories.[13]) The Jaguar was given away in a competition a year after filming ended and in 2002, it was auctioned for £53,200, many times the going rate for a "normal" 2.4.[14] In November 2005, it was sold again for more than £100,000.[15]
Spin-offs
Lewis
The spin-off Lewis, starring Kevin Whately as the now-promoted (and widowed, making the character's situation closer to Morse's) Inspector Lewis, premiered in 2006 on ITV. Nine series were made with the last concluding in November 2015. It aired in the USA on PBS under the title Inspector Lewis. On 2 November 2015, ITV announced that the show would end after its ninth series, following the decision made by Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox to retire from their roles in the series. Whately announced that the show had gone on long enough, with his character having done many stories between Morse and Lewis after he took on the role 30 years ago.[16]
Endeavour
In 2012, ITV aired a two-hour special prequel film,
References
- ^ "Inspector Morse named the greatest British crime drama of all time". Radio Times. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
- ^ a b c d "Inspector Morse an Episode Guide". Epguides.com. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
- ^ a b Inspector Morse at the BFI's Screenonline, Retrieved 4 August 2010,
- ^ "Channel 4 | 'Keep an eye on 4' Junction and trailers | 1991" – via YouTube.
- ^ "Inspector Morse: Top 10 Episodes".
- ^ BarnaWalter (23 July 2013). "DVD is not enough! The TV shows we need on Blu-ray right now – Part 1". The Edge. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
- ^ "Inspector Morse creator Colin Dexter dies aged 86".
- ^ Simpson, Andrew (December 2011). "Roksan Xerxes 20plus(£6890 inc.)" Hi-fi News, pp 30–32. Archived from the original on 11 July 2013.
- ^ "DID YOU KNOW? — Xerxes & Inspector Morse" Archived 15 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine. Roksan Audio Ltd.
- ^ Smith, Kim (October 2001). "Cracking The Code –The Composer Behind Morse". Essex Life & Countryside. Archived from the original on 7 October 2016. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
- ^ "Inspector Morse: Masonic Mysteries".
- ^ Kent Film Office. "Kent Film Office Inspector Morse – Deceived by Flight Article".
- ^ https://www.kcts9.org/article/old-favorite-returns-inspector-morse-coming-kcts-9#:~:text=Inspector%20Morse%20originally%20drove%20a%20Lancia&text=Thaw%2C%20however%2C%20insisted%20that%20Inspector,subsequent%20reprints%20of%20his%20novels.
- ^ "Back from the dead". The Daily Telegraph. 28 April 2007. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 28 April 2012.
- ^ "Morse Jaguar makes over £100,000". BBC News. 30 November 2005. Retrieved 14 September 2009.
- ^ "Lewis to End after Ninth Series". BBC News. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
- ^ Schwartz, Ryan (23 May 2022). "Endeavour to End With Season 9". TVLine. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
- ^ "'Endeavour' Season 9: Everything we know about the release date, plot and more". Deseret News. 15 November 2023. Retrieved 25 June 2023.
External links
- Granada International's Official Inspector Morse website
- Official Inspector Morse website
- Inspector Morse at itv.com.
- Inspector Morse at the British Film Institute.
- Inspector Morse at the BFI's Screenonline.
- Inspector Morse at the MBC's. Encyclopedia of Television.
- Inspector Morse at IMDb.
- Inspector Morse episode guide