The worst episodes of Inspector Morse
Ranked by viewer rating, lows first. Lit marks on the season rail place this list across the run. Vote on a placement to back it or contest it.
- 01
Morse's friend Beryl Newsome is stabbed at a rehearsal for an amateur production of The Magic Flute. Then Lewis starts uncovering incriminating evidence, including the transfer by the murder victim of ·99,000 into Morse's bank account. With his rival Bottomley pursuing him, Morse finds himself at the top of the suspect list and is eventually arrested for the murder he is investigating. After his arrest, Morse's house is searched, and a clergyman's body is found in a cupboard. With Morse seeing a Masonic conspiracy, Lewis suspects that someone with a grudge is out to frame Morse, partly by hacking into computer systems.After his release, Morse becomes the target of a direct attack, when his house catches fire, with him in it. Who wants to get at Morse so badly? Can it really be an old enemy who is dead?
- 02
The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn
Someone on the inside at the University of Oxford's Foreign Examination Syndicate is selling exam secrets. Nicholas Quinn, a member of the examination board, is in the right place to overhear something he shouldn't, and he is soon found dead at his cottage, poisoned with cyanide - but Nicholas was deaf. Then crossword compiler Philip Ogleby has his skull smashed in, and Morse suspects a connection.During his investigations, Morse is attracted to Monica Height. She works for the Examination Syndicate and may be mixed up in the corruption which led to Quinn's murder, and perhaps to Ogleby's as well.
- 03
Morse, bored with his holiday, visits a quiet country church and looks into an old unsolved murder and suspected suicide which happened there on hallowed ground. He soon believes he is onto something and draws Lewis into the case, which is officially re-opened. If the church is an unlikely murder scene, its Vicar and his voluntary helpers are equally unlikely suspects. Lawson, the Vicar, is haughty and is said to be perverted. Among his congregation is Ruth Rawlinson, whom Morse is attracted to, but she proves to be having an affair with church warden Harry Josephs, another suspect. Paul Wilson is a very lusty organist and is close to Mrs Josephs. Jealousies and tensions abound.While Morse is wrestling with the quagmire of respectable hypocrisy around the church, it appears that a serial killer is at work.
- 04
Laura Poindexter, a rich American tourist, dies in the Randolph Hotel, Oxford, apparently from a heart attack, but Morse suspects foul play. Laura was due to return a historic jewel to an Oxford museum, and it has gone missing. Then Dr Kemp, who is a womanizing historian, dies of a fall, Lucy Downes is crushed to death in a telephone box, and Dr Kemp's widow appears to take a fatal overdose of Paracetomol. Morse believes the deaths are all linked.
- 05
The schoolgirl daughter of rich parents has been missing for six months. Morse believes she has been killed, and his investigations show curious goings on at the missing girl's school. But before Morse can unravel the mystery, he finds another.
- 06
Morse and Lewis investigate the affairs of three people in prison for fraud, when one of them is murdered, and they are surprised by what they find at HMP Farnleigh, an open prison. Then someone tries to kill one of the two surviving fraudsters.
- 07
Morse investigates the murder of Trevor Radford, managing director of the family-owned Radford's Brewery, who was attacked and killed while working late. Morse becomes immersed in the implications of a hostile take-over bid by another company. Then Trevor's widow, Helen, goes to the brewery to look for his brother Stephen (with whom she was having an affair) and finds him also murdered.
- 08
The apparently motiveless murder of two young women points to a psychotic killer. Morse's speculations on what they might have in common leads him to a local garage owner, Jeremy Boynton, who knew them both, and who arouses his suspicions and dislike. Convinced that Boynton holds the key to the crime, Morse begins to hound him, despite having no firm evidence. Morse is also faced with the possible loss of his beloved red Mk II Jaguar.
- 09
Morse gets passed over for promotion, and at the same time he is given a new working partner in the shape of Sergeant Lewis - who is not at all sure what to make of his new boss. Then Morse and Lewis face their first murder case together: Anne Staveley, a good friend of Morse's in a choral society, is found hanged at her house in the Jericho area of Oxford. At first, the death looks like suicide, but Morse has his own reasons for treating the case as a murder. A parking ticket and the play Oedipus the King, by Sophocles, help Morse to solve the mystery.
- 10
Jane Robson asks Morse to present a crossword prize at a summer school in Lonsdale College, and while he is dining with a group of overseas students, a young Japanese man dies in what seems to be a brutal ritual killing. It turns out that Morse has unwittingly given all his best suspects a watertight alibi. Morse is attracted to Jane Robson, although she is plainly a neurotic woman who suffers from mood swings and even temper tantrums. He finds that Jane's grandfather was a prisoner-of-war in the hands of the Japanese during the second world war, and he begins to suspect a complicated conspiracy.
- 11
Morse investigates the apparent suicide of a terminally ill Oxford don and finds he has a personal connection with the family. As the case develops, Lewis worries that Morse's professionalism is being undermined.
- 12
Business tycoon Sir John Balcombe is found murdered at his country house, Balcombe Castle, with no signs of a break-in. As a result, the dead man's wife and sons come under suspicion. Morse finds that the family is strangely untroubled, and several of his prime suspects have flawed characters and dark secrets - and then the Balcombe family suffers another killing. Meanwhile, Morse has to cope with journalists who try to turn his own personality into a story - and he also suffers from an unhelpful Chief Superintendent, covering for the station's usual boss, who puts pressure on him to crack the case in a hurry. In the end, though, Morse is vindicated and his various tormentors get their comeuppance.
- 13
The strange death of an Englishwoman abroad takes Morse and Lewis to the city of Verona in northern Italy. Morse takes delight in open-air opera in the Roman amphitheatre and falls under the spell of Nicole Burgess, a glamorous opera singer. But Lewis is home-sick.
- 14
Morse's step-niece commits suicide, and he takes compassionate leave. He starts to research her past to find the reason for it, and this confronts him with the generation gap. His investigation into the young girl's death leads him into an alien world of teenage hedonism: house parties, raves and designer drugs.
- 15
The owner of a private hospital is found murdered in his car, after a series of anonymous threatening letters. Suspicion falls on a retired book-maker whose daughter suffered severe brain damage as a result of negligence during an operation some years before. Morse spends a lot of effort in investigating the possibility that the dead man was criminally negligent, and concludes that he was. While he does his best to bring the killer to justice, Morse does not seem very troubled that at the end of the day he is unable to nail him.
- 16
Morse and Lewis hunt a violent rapist who has escaped from prison. They find themselves drawn into an under-world of satanists, and some of them seem more respectable than others.
- 17
Morse investigates the reported theft of erotic paintings belonging to Sir Julius Hanbury, a local baronet who is one of those standing for election as the new Master of Courtney College, Oxford. As well as the pictures, Sir Julius himself has also disappeared. Morse finds Sir Julius's dead body, and at first it looks like murder, but the new police pathologist, Dr Grayling Russell, believes he killed himself. Then there is another death which is undoubtedly a murder - but how is it connected with the late Sir Julius Hanbury?
- 18
A body is found in the canal and the only clue to its identity points to a connection with one of the university's colleges. It happens that intense rivalry for one of the most prestigious posts in the university has led to murder. But which one of the highly respected contenders is the calculating killer?
- 19
Playboy architect Michael Gifford is found strangled in his car, and the only clues are a car-park ticket and his diary. Morse and Lewis uncover a love triangle involving the murdered man, and the list of suspects grows. Meanwhile, Morse considers asking Grayling Russell for a date.
- 20
An artist, fun-loving drinker and raconteur, Harry Field seems like a man after Morse's own heart. But when Morse and Lewis investigate his mysterious death, they discover that he was not such a lovable rogue
- 21
When the chef at Lewis's favorite Greek restaurant is found murdered, and a baby goes missing, Oxford's close-knit Greek community closes ranks. Matters aren't helped when Morse has a bad-tempered exchange with the shipping millionaire who owns the restaurant.
- 22
The search for a retired 'supergrass' takes Morse and Lewis from Oxford to the Australian outback. Strangely, Lewis is less at home down under than Morse himself is.
- 23
A young secretary is found raped and murdered in the car park of an Oxford pub. Morse and Lewis find that the girl was last seen getting into a car, while hitch-hiking with another woman, but neither the woman nor the driver of the car will come forward. Morse uncovers a complex web of relationships - passion and corruption, lies and unhappiness.
- 24
Morse investigates when the annual match of the Claret's old boys' cricket eleven is brought to an abrupt end by the sudden death of a team member - and it seems that cricket was the last thing on their minds.
- 25
Morse investigates a tangled web of academic intrigue around the baffling murder of Dr Julian Dear, who was a college don and a famous environmentalist. Dear was killed just minutes before he was due to give a controversial lecture. It soon appears that the most respectable of academic families can have skeletons in the cupboard, but Morse has to put his job on the line to get at the truth.
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He's smart, he's good looking, and he's got a great sense of humor.
