The best episodes of Lovejoy
Ranked by viewer rating, highs first. Lit marks on the season rail place this list across the run. Vote on a placement to back it or contest it.
- 01
The wife and brother of a man killed with a fabulous pair of Regency duelling pistols engage Lovejoy to find them and thus bring about the downfall of the murderer. In the process, Lovejoy puts Jane's life at risk and challenges Dr La Grange to a duel.
- 02
At the beginning of series 2, Lovejoy has just come out of prison after serving a sentence for theft. He believes he was set up and returns to Suffolk hoping to find the villain and get even.
- 03
A mean landowner is reluctant to share an inheritance with his hard-up brother, who is a friend of Jane's. Then Lovejoy intervenes, as a favour to Jane, with a cunning plan which depends on a fake statue.
- 04
Dealer Harry Catapodis has sold some fakes to Cassandra Lynch, a beautiful American widow Lovejoy knows. Caught out, Harry offers to buy the things back from Cassandra, but he admits he will then sell them on to someone else. With a Japanese business man and others, Lovejoy aims to get back at Harry - and to make some money and seduce Cassandra at the same time.
- 05
On a visit to Frankie's scrap yard Lovejoy acquires an ancient cannon. He takes a trip to the Tower of London to see what he can find out about it, and while he's away an ordnance expert going under the name of Major Turpin tries to steal the cannon from under Eric's nose.
- 06
The Lovejoy Antiques team is in Brighton, scouring the town for a really grand set of old china. Charlie Gimbert (as ever) causes some havoc, and then there's the story of the antique chairs...While on the china trail, Lovejoy chances on a stunning rip-off with hundreds of porcelain plates.
- 07
Jamie, an old friend of Lovejoy's, turns up on his doorstep needing help with an urgent problem. He can't afford to retrieve a wonderful painting from a pawnbroker, and there are only a few hours to go. Lovejoy agrees to help Jamie raise the cash - but Jamie's estranged wife is also on the warpath...
- 08
Lovejoy is threatened by a debt collector and hijacks a country house auction to pay his debts. In the process, he finds the lost 'Kakiemon Tiger', but he has to deal with competitors for it. Beth Taylor joins Lovejoy Antiques on a youth employment scheme, to learn the business.
- 09
Boswell, a friend of Lovejoy's who runs a travelling fair, asks Lovejoy to sell some silver candlesticks for him. However, the police arrive, saying they are stolen property, and Boswell is arrested. Meanwhile, an American friend of Charlotte's wants to buy the fairground Carousel.
- 10
A tough-talking business man hires Lovejoy to recover a sixteenth-century samurai sword which has been stolen from him. Another dealer, Lovejoy's mentor Jim Leonard, buys the sword at an auction, but it is promptly stolen from him by Joanna, the daughter of the original owner. Lovejoy stays on the trail.
- 11
Lovejoy takes an antique gun to a London gunsmith to be repaired, but the armorer is having landlord problems. Meanwhile, an acquaintance of Lovejoy's, Texas Greenberg, is on his way over to buy something special.
- 12
Lovejoy has a dangerous plan, which includes putting himself in the hands of a notorious moneylender and risking the future of his daughter, Vicky.But then, ""Those who hazard all do it in hope of fair advantages...""
- 13
In the last episode of Lovejoy, our hero gears himself up to marry Charlotte, and his old life begins to splinter. Jane Felsham returns with a splash, and without Alexander in tow - will Lovejoy have to choose between her and Charlotte?
- 14
Lovejoy sets out to help a young woman to trace a pair of Meissen figures which she sold to raise cash for a drug habit. When he comes across evidence of a double-cross by Charlie Gimbert, he decides to get even.
- 15
Sam Wendell, an old forger, dies of a heart attack while being pursued by a mysterious priest, leaving behind one of his small forgeries. Sam had told his wife it was the key to a fortune, and the priest soon tries to break into the Wendell house. Lovejoy aims to unravel the puzzle, by way of helping Sam's widow (who's left with very little) to recover anything of value. Along the way, Lovejoy dresses up as a priest.
- 16
Needing a break from Charlie, Lovejoy takes a job for a few days at a new antiques market in Norwich owned by a client of Jane's. He soon realizes the boss is a con-man and sets out to expose him. Along the way, he also tries to trap a second crook who is selling fake paintings.
- 17
Lovejoy finds a bundle of old love letters hidden in the back of an antique clock. He quickly falls for the owner, but are the letters genuine? Under the name of 'Captain Lovejoy', he sets out to find the answer.
- 18
Lovejoy travels to Venice to investigate the murder of a friend. The dead friend had bought a painting Lovejoy believed was a fake. In Venice, he is drawn into an ambitious art swindle, and identical twins Caterina and Lavinia are behind the scam.
- 19
Lovejoy values the house contents of an elderly widow, an old friend of Jane's, who is burgled soon afterwards. Finding he is the local police's prime suspect, Lovejoy decides to work out for himself (with the help of Brian Nunn, a remarkable bin man) who was behind the burglary. Matters are complicated by Eric's 'bin diving' habit.
- 20
The manager of a heavy rock band wants to sell an ancient pre-Columbian solid gold statue, and it brings Inca black magic into East Anglia - including two murders. Lovejoy takes on the task of solving the mystery.
- 21
Lovejoy and Jane have the job of fitting out a smart new restaurant being opened by Major Linden Walker, an old army friend of Tinker's. With the help of a former prison officer (one he knew on the inside) Lovejoy delivers the goods, only to find he has been gulled. Linden and Tinker's cabaret act Crime and Punishment makes its first and last appearance.
- 22
Lovejoy is likely to be on his own for Christmas. However, a violent attack on an old Czech fighter pilot leads Lovejoy and Eric to Prague on a treasure hunt. Jane, who was on holiday with friends in Austria, joins Lovejoy in Prague to help solve a mystery of missing diamonds.Tinker is left to mind the shop and make preparations for Christmas.
- 23
Lovejoy is evicted from his rented cottage, as Freddy the Phone, his landlord (also known as Frederick Arthur Haig Montgomery Wavell Reeve) owes back taxes on it. So Lovejoy takes to the road and acquires a commode said to have belonged to the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte... and the next thing is to hunt down a continental expert to authenticate it. Did 'Boney' really sit here?
- 24
With the naive help of Jane, Lovejoy sets up an unusual form of dealers' ring to bump up the price of a painting he has entered in an auction. Three old friends (Matron, Gideon and Henry the Hearse) rally round, but nothing seems to go according to plan...
- 25
In the latest of a series of antique shop 'ram-raids', a table Lovejoy has left with another dealer is smashed, and he uncovers a plan to steal a friend's silver. Meanwhile, Jane befriends a young man while doing some charitable work on behalf of the local hospital, and Charlie Gimbert is asked to find a rather special clock for a customer.
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