Laurence adores him and it is easy to see why in watching Lewis. His integrity beams off the screen like a lit transporter as it sends Federation people here or there.
I agree with this, and oh how I wish the emotional glue that held Lewis and Hathaway together had been more obvious. Fox' character was kept a cypher until the last three episodes of "Inspector Lewis." While I would really welcome a continuation of the Morse/Lewis world, I would welcome it only with some qualifications. 1) No more, no more, no more Barrington Pheloung sobbing strongs. The soundtrack for "Lewis" swamped the narrative and all--I do mean
all--drama. 2) Concentration on Hathaway as a youngish man with a great education nearing middle-age as an academic "Jack of All Trades, Master of None." 3) Mysteries that would not be formulaic and tied to Oxford. More educational venues besides Oxford are steeped in Town and Gown drama; and Fox has a laconic, noir demeanor not often found in episodic mysteries--British or American. Fox has much more of a penchant for noir than Benedict Cumberbatch. As interesting as a very niche audience found "Lewis" (and "Morse") academic sub-specialties-of-the-week, viewers tuned in for Whately and Fox. The problem was that Hathaway's stiff upper lip simply was not dramatically compelling. The problem is national: British productions trying to reject the stiff upper lip image go to the opposite extreme and become comic book, as "Sherlock" tragically became.
This, however, doesn't mean a new kind of British mystery has to be comic book, the way "Sherlock" has become. Probably most American viewers faithful to the Morse/Lewis series watched "Silk," for example. I cannot fathom why that series never returned to PBS; it was dramatic; it had such promise; and--I suspect--it was considered too "American." But the American entertainment industry (at least American entertainment before it became the province of thirteen-year-olds) was the glory of the entertainment world. And the reason for that was because American-"style" writing isn't a respecter of social class and is unafraid of human emotion. Surely the reason English actors (and other actors from the U.K.) can master an American accent is because they are
motivated to master it. No roles like those that Damian Lewis, for example, have made immortal would be possible on British television, largely because of Britain's atavistic respect for and distinct between social classes.
Please, PBS, talk BBC executives into bringing Laurence Fox back. His character is ready-made and has *never* been given its due.
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A-Checkered-Life
8 years ago
Hilary,
I agree with the weight that you bring to your argument about many aspects of the show, especially about James' character being under tight wraps for so long. We knew (1) he had been studying to be priest; (2) he had failed his long time friend with cruel comments about his homosexuality, (3) his connection to that bizarre family in the big house, (4) his continued longing for a cloistered life, and (5) the walkabout in Spain to the Cathedral door that he looked at, then turned around and walked back. That much Americans would have discovered on the first wine date. Did we know anything else about James after ten years of programming?
Listening to Kevin and to Laurence separately, it is clear that they have no intention at this time to return. They have loved it, but it is done and now gone. The last episodes where shown in the UK between October 6 through November 10, 2015, so filming must have been early in the year, or even in the Fall of 2014. It is now long past the show's real departure dates.
We can grieve about it and fantasize about changes in locations, characters, script, etc., and hopefully, someone will write a wonderful Lewis pastiche or two. I would be glad to buy into books based on Robbie and James because the Morse books were quite unpleasant due to the lead detective. He was not charming and scurrilously clever. I wondered why Colin Dexter wrote such a painful, unpleasant 'hero'.
I've been rewatching the Phryne Fisher Mysteries from Melbourne. She basically a female James Bond, although she is far better dressed than Mr. Bond.
I also love the Shetland Island Mysteries. And perhaps Canada has a few interesting detectives who are worth viewing.
Well, I've not been to bed yet for last night and it's 5:21 am already. Talk with you later.
A Checkered Life speaks of myriad diverse adventures being the rewards of endless curiosity.
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hilaryjrp
8 years ago
On another site dedicated to a specific television series, I harangue my co-participants with a moral interpretation of pop culture. What this has to do with the price of tomatoes: a member in agreement with me stated very succinctly and accurately that noir as a genre died in the 1960's due to the disappearance of suspense from television series and films. I attributed this disappearance to a need to "think young," be "with it"--not to mention the national submission to a drug culture. From perhaps 1964 onward, noir as it was known in its glory days became unfashionable specifically because it depended on the leveling (and democratic) tendencies of human emotion.
If passion (sexual and romantic) was no longer fashionable-- One must ask how human passion could ever become unfashionable, but it did-- If passion was no longer fashionable, then only the intellect could contribute to what would evolve into the specific end-of-the-millennium "thriller." That the popularity of late-century noir such as "Witness" (Harrison Ford) or "L.A. Confidential" was founded perhaps totally on these films return to human passion--this fact either was lost on or ignored by the people in power in the entertainment industry.
I am not an Anglophile-for-Anglophilism sake. The influence of classism on many if not most British "mystery" series offends or bores me, but that's exactly why I began to watch "Inspector Lewis." And adorable "Robbie" had such a sad, diffident, and secretive younger sidekick. ALL the facts you cite about Hathaway interested me as well (although I would never be able to cite episode titles, as I never paid attention to them and indeed don't know if PBS included them). My point is that, in a richly ironic way, British series such as Downton Abbey and, in its early years, Sherlock, returned "arse-backwards" to human passion. Downton Abbey was never noir and (superficialy) classist in the extreme. It could "indulge" primitive human passion while retaining huge audiences worldwide because it was set in the near-past, which does not frighten philistine viewers. Sherlock went off the rails at least five years ago, but it too for a time tapped into passion in a way American television hasn't in decades. I do not recall the last American series' demise I mourned. I actually suffered for Damian Lewis' character in "Homeland," but "Homeland" is not a network series.
The point is that human beings can pretend they do not need passion only so long. If the stars of "Inspector Lewis" have decided to turn to other interests, great good fortune go with them. But the Hathaway character has such promise in regard to resuscitating noir. Hathaway, like it or not, is a noir macho man.
I recall watching the two-part "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" (starring Fox' relation, Freddy). Holy smokes! Talk about mystery and passion! This faux-Dickens depended on the miseries of the middle-class. There is a sterility in any entertainment dependent on the British class system for its drama, because false distinctions between human beings diverts attention from suspense and focuses attention on false distinctions between human beings. (Downton Abbey never pretended to be a suspense series.) So the choice, as well as the potential, is Britain's: Cut the crap of class-based drama exported to the U.S. via PBS Mystery (and other Masterpiece Theater venues), give us class-less intelligent drama and mystery, and maintain HUGE worldwide audiences...or retreat into an arrogance that became off-putting for many people on the other side of the Atlantic circa 1776. America does not need to prove how much it welcomes British entertainment.
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nicky-682-764451
8 years ago
Lewis, and Morse and Endeavour for that matter, aren't BBC productions. So the BBC are unlikely to be able to persuade them to return! But neither are the ITV executives. It's over, and time to move on for both of them.
I'm not quite sure why you think that British to programmes should be produced to suit your likes. Trying to follow the discussion and it seems that you'd like the BBC and ITV program makers to make programmes for the US audience. Why? If ours are not to your taste then feel free not to watch. PBS buy, and indeed fund, these programmes, so presumably people watch.
Class based dramas appear to do quite well, think Downton Abbey. The irony is that the whole Oxford setting for Morse, Lewis and Endeavour is a backdrop. None of the detectives are in any way upper class, Morse was from a working class background, as is Lewis, and as we know Hathaway grew up on the Coevcour estate where his dad was a servant, albeit a higher ranking one than many. Lewis had little time for the Oxford elite, Morse understood them better but was bitter, Hathaway fitted in best of all 3. With the exception of Inspector Lynley and another that starred Patrick Malahide (the name of which escapes me), few other British detectives are "posh". Certainly not in recent years.
There are 2 main reasons for British actors heading to the us. To avoid being typecast and it pays better. But I've not yet heard any say that it was because of "Britain's atavistic respect for and distinction between social classes". Two of the best known actors from the uk recently to have become major tv "stars" in the us (ie: in programmes made in the us) are Hugh Laurie (House) and Damien Lewis (Homeland). Both are actually from pretty privileged backgrounds. Their reasons for going were similar, to get a chance of different roles. Hugh was known as a comedy actor, never likely to be cast in a serious drama lead.
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lilactime2014
8 years ago
It is something I have noticed on so many Brit dramas imdb boards, the "Dexter's", Silent Witness, LUTHER (Especially), Foyle's war (to a lesser extent), Call The Midwife (waaaay too much), Happy Valley (oh just go away!) and so on. Now the programs are on US Netflix or are seen more regularly in the US that there are so many complaints about aspects of British Culture, particularly with Gun laws but in other things as well. Someone was complaining, yes complaining, on Call the Midwife that she couldn't understand why all the houses didn't have telephones in the 1950s and why was everyone so ugly and dirty. Another, somewhere on this board was complaining that although they liked Lewis, they were tired of it being set in the academic world so often. But the single most irritating set of complaints come from gun enthusiasts who can't, just CAN'T, understand why British cops don't routinely carry weapons (See Luther board - oh the gun threads!) and *EVERY* single post usually has something like "In the US this would have ended in seconds if the Police were armed". Using death rate logic does no good at all. Religion is also creeping into far too many posts as well, complaining, as in one case on the Morse board, "If he is an Atheist, why is he allowed to sing in a Church" (paraphrasing) or calling out every unmarried Mother on "Call the Midwife" a Slut or Whore.
I am not quite sure why it rankles with me so much because there are a lot, a LOT, of very sensible thoughtful posters who love UK drama and just want to understand it more, but it is the arrogant ones who just assume the world, and it's TV, should always be made in their image. In Happy Valley Sarah Lancashire (Catherine Cawood) is too fat and ugly to be on TV and again, "why didn't she just shoot him". Weight and looks come into things such a lot, virtually always with women leads.
I know I am generalizing a tad but I just want to scream sometimes "Well stop watching then" or "Save us from your tiny, ill-educated thoughts - Shut up!" I don't see any Brits on imdb boards like CSI or Breaking Bad saying "It's all too American" - "Why is there no-one called Bickersdyke". That's possibly because we have been used to the best of US TV for years anyway and know a cop carries a gun and will shoot first - ask questions later (except Columbo).
I would hate it if UK companies got too caught up in trying to placate a US/World audience. UK TV does well around the world BECAUSE of it's Britishness and it should have the strength to keep on doing what it does so well. I know economics plays a role, but UK TV should stand out, NOT blend in.
Anyone who has been here a number of years will possibly recognize the trends.
Apologies about the rant, I don't mean to offend anyone.
'tler
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hilaryjrp
8 years ago
Apologies about the rant, I don't mean to offend anyone.
Of course you do:
it is the arrogant ones who just assume the world, and it's TV, should always be made in their image
...
and
Anyone who has been here a number of years will possibly recognize the trends.
was in response to my post. That's fine, offend away, but be courageous enough to take ownership for your sentiment. You're an American who is an Angophile and (it follows) does not believe the PBS' role in popularizing British television series deserves a bit more respect than the abrasive Jeremy Piven or Shirley MacLaine type of characters found in those productions. Fine. That's your opinion. It is why the word "opinion" exists.
But please, have the courage of your own convictions (if not self-hatred). Don't say
I just want to scream sometimes "Well stop watching then" or "Save us from your tiny, ill-educated thoughts - Shut up!"
--and then end with saying you don't want to offend anyone. Because of course you wanted to offend your "ill-educated" toothless ridge-running moonshine-slurping compatriots who do not live their twenty-first-century cultural lives in "Emma."
Why not start off by posting which sentence of paragraph exactly, in my response, you take such exception to? It's 2016, you realize, and some folks on IMDB are full of what some of us ill-educated folk call "passionate conviction." [It's a phrase very common among me and my fellow hobos over our campfire. ]
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lilactime2014
8 years ago
You're an American who is an Angophile and (it follows) does not believe the PBS' role in popularizing British television
Am I? Blimey I hadn't noticed. This must be some "Life on Mars" thing where I only imagined growing up in the West Midlands going to a bog-standard Comp, getting O and A levels and going to a Midlands Uni.
All this time I was in Nebraska with my hooch-swillin' cohorts - yee-haw!
How I grew up supporting West Bromwich Albion is a mystery to me and my brother Billy-Sue (he's confused!).
'tler
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!!!deleted!!! (67791493)
8 years ago
As much as this was delightfully confusing and trying to guess who did it nearly impossible I feel the last season didn't hire the best actors like earlier ones and the quality faltered somewhat. That said, the IMDB bit I read while watching this at Amazon about Fox sounded so much like his Hathaway character that I doubt he would even bother with a singular series if they could create one for him. He's good at the 'rude' over educated reserved elitist but just who the bloody hell can identify with him? He took the place of Morse for Lewis in that he 'knew stuff' and was so cultured he'd shine like a pearl if rubbed, but, alas, is too into his (self) and continuing education to allow that to happen. The only way for more Inspector Hathaway is if Lewis returns from New Zealand and wants to consult more.
The Chief guy was (sorry) terrible too. And never any send off to the woman who held the role for ages? Oddly cold if you ask me.
Loved the series though. Inspector Lewis has the qualities many men lack these days but we all know they're still out there. He was a great role model for all things right in the world.
GFW
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