post-Inspector Morse mystery series?

[meganbmoore]

 I’ve been tearing my way through Inspector Morse the last 2 months and am almost out of episodes.  Like Midsomer Murders, I enjoy it but can’t claim a great attachment.  The latest was the refreshingly (given the current political climate) anti-Nazi one with a very very young Rachel Weisz  (so young that I had no idea who she was despite thinking she looked familiar until her character started ranting about something and the voice clicked) leaving me with I think 5 episodes, which brings me to the question:

 

Should I follow this up with the sequel, Lewis (despite my irritation that a certain lovable family man has a fridged wife in his own series...), or the prequel, Endeavour?  Or should I take a break from the Morse-universe and watch a different (British or otherwise) detective show, preferably on Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime?

 

Off the table for non-Morse canon shows (because I’ve seen them)

 

Anything Agatha Christie or Lord Peter Wimsey Related

Foyle’s War

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries

Midsomer Murders

Doctor Blake

Father Brown

Murdoch Mysteries

Frankie Drake Mysteries

Jonathan Creek

Inspector Alleyn Mysteries

 

Probably other things I’m forgetting.

Comments

[china_shop]

FWIW, I love Lewis and have seen it all through twice, but I didn't get more than a few episodes into Morse or Endeavour.

(Longer version: Lewis has a fairly modern sensibility, wrt gender dynamics and so forth, even if Lewis himself doesn't always, and I watched that first, so when I went back and tried to watch Morse, I found him painfully sexist and gave up. Also, Lewis is just a good copper, not a genius, and I appreciated his methodical approach vs. the lightning genius insight of your typical TV savant. Also, I love Hathaway.)

[meganbmoore]

I watch Morse very much as a product of the time. There' plenty wouldn't put up with in a show coming out now. As it is I enjoy it as something that's on and as something that helped shape more recent detective shows, but it isn't something I can be invested in.

I feel that British detectives (Poirot and Marple excepted) tend to be less "genius savant" types. In Morse, Lewis tends to have better instincts than Morse and often guesses something akin to what actually happened, even though Morse is the one who puts pieces together. (He's also less prone to obsessively sticking with his theory.)

Morse with women is...he tends to fall in love with any single woman in his general age group who's involved in a case and is typically more sympathetic to women than to men, but yeah, he's also pretty sexist, thought the show seems to realize it roughly 2 out of 3 times.

[china_shop]

Tbh, Morse lost me in, I think, the first episode when he presumed to do a woman's crossword for her. As a crossworder myself, that made me cranky. But I might have liked the show better if I hadn't just watched my way through Lewis, so pinch of salt, etc. Context is everything. :-)

[meganbmoore]

Hah, yeah. Though, the point of that episode was that the woman was literally driven to suicidal depression precisely because of men interfering in and taking over her life in the guise of caring for her or being interested, and Morse was the latest in a long line of offenders, though it took him most of the episode to realize that.

[antisoppist]

Here via network.

I loved Morse when it first came out but I think these days I would want to kick him a lot. Anyway. I have only seen odd episodes of Lewis, always intended to watch all of it but never got round to it. I really like Endeavour though. It's different because it's consciously historical so your attention gets focused on things/attitudes that were Of Their Time and how they are not like that now (a bit like Call the Midwife in that educational sense) but it isn't too obvious about it. I can believe that Young Morse grew up to become Morse, and Roger Allam is excellent as his boss.

The Bletchley Circle? Not sure if that's available anywhere you can see it. It is quite gory though. ETA. Sorry, just read your previous post and see you've watched the San Francisco ones. I like UK Law and Order, largely because it has Harriet Walter in it, but don't know if you can get that.

[runawaynun]

I'm always up for recommending Scott & Bailey.

I enjoyed Lewis when I watched it. Rebecca Front is in it as Lewis's boss, which is always a positive in my book.

[birdienl]

I loved Lewis, watched every episode. The relationship between Lewis and Hathaway is great, mysteries are interesting and varied, settings are beautiful.

I can also recommend Foyle's War very much, the background of WWII in that one makes it a very unique police series and Sam is such a wonderful character!