MovieChat Forums > Lewis (2006) Discussion > What is old is new or just recycled?

What is old is new or just recycled?

posted 10 years ago by lawson14
2 replies | jump to latest

Just finished watching the first ever episode of Inspector Lewis. And since it wasn't Masterpiece, it was just called Lewis.

The plot of the episode was very interesting. 1. It involved a family company including the widow of one twin brother and her son who was soon to be brought into the company, the other unmarried twin brother, and the divorced accountant and his daughter. As it turned out the real father of the son was the accountant. . 2. There was also the professor who had written a well regarded book containing new findings which as it turned out, were incorrect and horribly embarrassing to the professor.. 3. The professor's wife suffered from a neuro-muscular disease and was confined to a wheelchair. 4. The accountant's daughter attempted to drown herself and ended up in the hospital hooked up to a machine.

And if you watched the most recent post-retirement episodes of Inspector Lewis, these plot strands seem awfully familiar as they were all reused. Did the writers of these episodes wish to give a nod to the first episode, feel that nobody would remember the first episode, or were just out of ideas?

[–] Helena727 9 years ago

The writers and producers are far too bright/accomplished to have done this by accident (or on purpose but hoping that no one would notice). I think it's an intentional symmetry -- Hathaway's 1st case with a newbie echoes Lewis's 1st case with Hathaway-as-newbie.

"All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people."

[–] the1andonlybbb 9 years ago

Well, in that vein, I have two (& a half) more questons:

1) in "And the Moonbeams Kissed the Sea" Lewis is invited to Dr. Hobson's birthday party (how old do we think she was going to be?) who suggests that he bring the "dishy" Sgt Hathaway along as his date. In the party scene, after wishing her Happy Birthday, she finally asks where Hathaway is. Lewis says he doesn't know. Later, we cut to Lewis finding James sitting on the garden swing outside enjoying a hassle free smoke without receiving the collective "stink eye" from Laura's doctor friends. The question before us is: why is Hathaway, if he was indeed enjoying his own company, already sitting all the way to the end of the bench swing so that Lewis was able to sit down next to him quickly without his needing to ask James to "shift it"?

2) In the season 4 episode "Dead of Winter" they investigate a shooting on the Mortmaigne estate which concludes with the discovery of a bodyby a newly erected Statue which replaced a fountain that formerly stood there. Assuming that a few fans of Lewis are also fans of Endeavour, did any one who saw the S3E3 "Prey" which was set about 30 years previous notice if they showed the fountain somewhere in any of the background shots??