TS: Lewis vs Morse

Perhaps Hathaway has an open mind when it comes to his sexuality. (Second the absurdly attractive thing. Do sidekicks count in the cute ratings?)

sorry guys, but Lewis is embarrassingly shit. Lewis seems to represent the tragedy of the contemporary male condition, whilst Morse seemed to embody the vibrancy of it. Lewis is sad and pathetic, Morse definitely wasn't.

u seem to have mistaken Morse for a competent detective getting non-stop lady action

there were many suggestions that Morse was getting quite a bit of action, a love interest every episode at one point. But anyway, that wasn't quite the nuance of my thought.

a love interest every episode at one point

some of them not murderers.

but to call a morose, functional alcoholic who uses his education to belittle his peers and is almost painfully inept in matters of the heart "vibrant" and his family-loving, sympathetic partner "pathetic" is...something

ok ok i get it, you like the drip.

not the point at all, really. yr contempt for Lewis's humanity is interesting. of course Morse is a compelling character, and likeable too, but this is because of his car-wreckness, not despite it. Lewis is sort of deliberately underdrawn in Morse in order to throw Morse's romantic hero into sharper relief but Endeavour is pretty much a Polidori who wishes he was Byron. also in the first ever ep he wears a hilarious leather jacket in one scene. so try-hard.

So you don't think Morse is a very authentic character? I think that is a question which is quite central to the integrity of the show. If you have trouble suspending your disbelief then surely it's quite a serious problem that pervades the entire production - a problem with the way it was written, acted, directed etc.

as mark pointed out upthread, Morse is a fairy-tale set in a magical Oxford where all the council estates have disappeared and the murder rate is somewhat higher than south central LA. authenticity doesn't come into it really, but Morse is perfectly believable as a human being. like a lot of human beings he is a very bad understander of his own soul, and his dissatisfaction has curdled into a general, defensive misanthropy. except around handsome middle-aged women.

they're not all middle-aged by any means! they just have to be wearing a skirt

lol truth

tho i've got to say his taste leans towards the more experienced English character actress

re: magical Oxford - that's certainly true, ha.

Even if Morse is easily captured in the romantic aesthetic, there's something to be said for his character. Lewis, as I mentioned before, is a sad and conservative indictment of contemporary life bereft of any vitality, very depressing and not something I wish to engage with regularly.

if I'd known this many people watched Lewis I'd have turned round and gone the other way a few weeks ago when I was slobbily dressed and found my walk home covered in giant filming lights everywhere, too dazzling to work out what was actually being filmed (if anything)

saw two episodes from the first series which seemed to have some slightly unconvincing attempts at edginess shoehorned in (iirc the sidekick turned out to have ~history~ with the victim and/or main suspects of both, one of them from his time in a mysterious cult or something), but I suspect Morse must've been like that too and I was too young to notice

Morse had that ravers ep!

that's a classic one. lol.

well i think with morse the "mysterious edgy cult" was actually "behind the scenes at an oxford college" <-- ie this was groundbreaking behind-the-green-door stuff, in whodunnit-with-the-curare-tipped-blowpipe terms: but yes, the three i just saw back-to-back plus the one a passing spacecadet mentions (which i saw about a month ago) do all work the "weirdos are among us" lever a bit heavily (and hathaway seems to have to recuse himself a lot, but as noted my theory is that his backstory resets to zero every time)

right back to sherlock h, tec-fiction switches between the episodes which are subtly mundane -- "the norwood builder" -- and the eps which are pruriently exotic, pegleg lascars, secret societies, the mormons etc

xxp I do remember that one! I considered mentioning it. I don't remember any other episodes like that, but maybe it's only because rave culture was a thing I was dimly aware of, as an admittedly v sheltered 12y/o who liked the Shamen, and any other "edgy" references were completely lost on me

(checked the air date in case I'd severely miscalculated my age when seeing it, and Wikipedia says it was directed by Danny Boyle! Apologies if this was common knowledge...)

now I have read it and not just stomped past it to the Submit button, mark s's post seems wise

hoping future Lewis viewings will be improved if I take "Hathaway's backstory resets every week so he can have history with whatever any victim/suspect does" as the intentional recurring schtick of the show, rather than an accidentally overused plot point

i knew but i'd forgotten. lot of biggish writers and directors did a Morse ep

the rave one is quite bad in many ways btw

Lewis ≥ Morse >>>>>>>>>>>>> Endeavour

Are any TV detectives cute? New thread enquiry perhaps.

― mark s, Thursday, 17 November 2011 21:36 (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

mark mark mark... John Nettles? Catnip to ladies of a certain vintage.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7a/50/7f/7a507fecb29df297303b5706d9fa748a.jpg

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/08/31/01/37B6B5D700000578-0-image-m-69_1472605046580.jpg

Berge

I like Endeavour, but it is a bit DO YOU SEE???

Is there a Midsomer Murders thread?

Taking Sides: Midsomer Murders vs 24

Only this one, apparently.

john nettles' nipples: too close together? a visual investigation

Lewis > DCI Banks > Scott & Bailey > Morse > Silent Witness > Broadchurch >>>>>>>>> Endeavor

I liked Judge John Deed tbf but not sure it qualifies?

I can bear anything with Martin Shaw in it, so disqualified.

Fair.

Morse hasn't aged well tbh

Scott & Bailey doesn't really fit tho it's an ok show, i want to see toffs murdering each other

haven't watched Banks, nor hardly any of Broadchurch. French and Saunders have permanently rewired the other one as Witless Silence in my head

Well yeah, because he's dead... But y'know what I mean xp

Morse has definitely aged but mostly in quite a cute way imo

https://www.itv.com/presscentre/sites/default/files/styles/pi_large/public/DCI_BANKS4_EP1.jpg

Don't know their names but these three (Banks) are all just really good actors. At least in this series.

Morse feels too nostalgic for me to take completely seriously these days? Idk maybe that is indeed cute. Simpler times etc

not sure of the one on the left, Stephen Tompkinson in the middle, Doc Marten's wife on the right

i.e. same revolving cast of actors that are in everything.

i don't watch this stuff to be challenged

Same. It's comfort food.

Can't stand that one with Brenda Blethyn in it, dressed all dowdy, though it has got Jon Morrison in it.

Vera isn't terrible but too seedy again, like most of Frost for that matter

and i kinda like Dalziel and Pascoe against my better instincts, it's basically a celebration of twattery

Vera gives lots of actors the chance to "Tak like that, man. I divven't kna what's happened to wor lass, like". And Alun Armstrong isn't even in it.

New Tricks! liked that before all the good actors left/died

I can't take Brenda Blethyn's crap Geordie accent

My mum loves it though, and every other show mentioned above. I was wondering whether to recommend Game of Thrones to her (too violent?) until we watched a Silent Witness where a lead character got his skull crushed and his body set on fire

I like the Dalziel and Pascoe books, never saw the show.

I've read most of if not all of the Banks books. Still laughing that one book was about a Mojo writer getting murdered while writing an article about Not At All Syd Barrett.

its been on in the background as i do the dishes and i feel very very strongly that nobody involved in endeavour should be paid to be so

Roger Allan's solid enough. I've watched very few of them tho, it's not a patch on its 2 companion serieses

"i am a bagman not a yesman!"

morse somewhat shakily referencing the climax of michael clayton to explain why he shd *not* be taken off the case

endeavour s8 and it's roughly 1972 i believe: i wouldn't expect *everyone's* hair to be long -- it didn't really happen like that -- but it's funny that the one character whose locks are descending faintly collar-wards is the recently widowed chief superintendent bright :)

"it's a rum caper!" (thursday on the craft of acting, which he appears never to have encountered until now)

lol just checking out a character ("lord ormsby-gore") who features in this ep bcz it seemed like vaguely actionable (?) to include a real-named person as potentially a killer (ep not over, no spoilers!) and either way a total dipshit

and the actual real person with rouhgly this name and title at this moment (david ormsby-gore, 5th lord harlech) died in a traffic accident in the village next to the village i grew up in, almost certainly in a near-legendary traffic blackspot which the family (ours not the OGs) had to negotiate on a daily basis

(we weren't involved though, i'd already left home officer)

the younger ormsby-gores were famously all over the rolling stones -- and worse, eric clapton -- at this time (1972) and things didn't go well for them really

(harlech died in 1985, in case you want a test)

i am and have been right about endeavour and it is correct to say so

the anachronisms or incorrect details are certainly a feature and not a bug the entire thing is as daft as dr who but infinitely better because the casting and production quality and attention to (wholly incorrect) detail and the nods and flourishes are all deeply enjoyable and satisfying

i want a full season of joly for short

just discovered that Max is also the guy who voiced Gollum in the Bakshi LotR and dubbed Pigsy in the (quite annoying) UK dub of Monkey

:O

subs not dubs! (sorry max)

Was also the original Estragon (Peter Hall's 1955 production)!