Inspector Morse

[[File:MorseLewis200x_3511.jpg|fram] ""Coded messages, murder - right up my street. It's not a bad way to start the day.""

Inspector Morse was a British Oxford, it starred John Thaw as the grumpy, intellectual and beer loving Chief Inspector Morse, and [[Kevin Whatel] as his cheerful Geordie sidekick Sergeant Lewis. During the course of each episode, the pair would investigate a murder, which would often involve complex university politics, bright but emotional students and the opportunity for Morse to utilise his love of classical music, literature and cryptic crossword puzzles.

The show was immensely popular in Britain, and John Thaw's portrayal of Morse is generally considered one of British television's most iconic characters. Still repeated fairly frequently on ITV3.

Sergeant Lewis later received his own spin-off in Lewi]. A [[Prequel, Endeavour, set in 1965 and starring Shaun Evans as the young Detective Constable Morse, first aired in 2012; as of 2019, it was still on the air.


 * Afraid of Blood: Morse has quite a distaste for gore and won't look at fresh corpses unless he absolutely has to. Being a murder detective, he sometimes does have to.
 * [[Always Murde]
 * [[Better Manhandle the Murder Weapo]
 * [[British Brevit]: While each season is between 3 and 5 episodes long, each episode is an hour and forty minutes!
 * [[Cartwright Curs]
 * [[Cool Ca]: Morse's red Jaguar Mark II.
 * [[Creator Came]: Series creator Colin Dexter would make a cameo in every episode.
 * Da Chief: Chief Superintendent Strange veers into this on occasion... in a very British way, of course.
 * [[Embarrassing First Nam]:
 * "You poor sod."
 * [[Eureka Momen]: Often supplied by a passing comment from Sergeant Lewis.
 * [[Hey, It's That Guy!|Hey, It's That Gu]: Watching reruns of [[The Sweene] can come as a shock after you've become used to Thaw as Morse.
 * What about the episode where he faces off against Emperor Palpatine? And the episode where one of his colleagues is [[Star Wars|Admiral Piet]?
 * In the very first episode, [[Doctor Who|the Second Docto] appears as a rather creepy peeping tom.
 * Quite a few other famous British faces turn up as guest stars.
 * [[Ho Ya]: Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis. For example, the spoiler above.
 * [[Inspector Lestrad]: Sergeant Lewis (Although, in later series, he sometimes found the right answer before Morse and even once successfully hid the truth from Morse to spare Morse's feelings)
 * [[Irregular Serie]
 * [[Never One Murde]
 * [[Never Suicid]: Subverted in that Morse often makes a point of investigating suicides.
 * [[No Name Give]
 * [[The Not Love Interes]: Morse is too ... Morse to be exactly paternal, but Lewis still manages to be his [[Most Important Perso], to the point that he  and Lewis finds that one of the few pictures in Morse's house is of himself and Morse in front of Morse's [[Cool Car|Ja].
 * Old Cop, Young Cop: Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis. In Endeavour, Inspector Thursday and Constable Morse.
 * [[Overtook the Serie]: Originally averted by mixing adaptions of the novels with original plots, but
 * [[Oxbridg]
 * [[Ret Cano]: Dexter has admitted he prefers the TV series portrayal of the young, Geordie Sergeant Lewis to the elderly Welshman used he used in the novels.
 * Sesquipedalian Smith:
 * [[Significant Anagra] Constantly. Colin Dexter is a major crossword fan and often included anagrams of important character's names.
 * only a few fans will get.
 * Spin-Off: [[Lewi].
 * [[Television Geograph]: Morse was seemingly able to walk between Oxford landmarks which are in reality several miles apart in a matter of seconds.
 * [[The Corone]: The show went through several, although Max from the first two series is the most well remembered.
 * [[Theme Song Assonanc]: The theme tune is based on the Morse code for Morse's name. Occasionally the composer would throw in the name of a character from that episode, sometimes the murderer, but on other occasions an innocent character to throw knowledgeable viewers off track.
 * [[Theme Song Assonanc]: The theme tune is based on the Morse code for Morse's name. Occasionally the composer would throw in the name of a character from that episode, sometimes the murderer, but on other occasions an innocent character to throw knowledgeable viewers off track.

Episodes of this series provide examples of:

 * [[Best Known for the Fanservic]: Any interview with Frances Barber that mentions her appearance in "Death of the Self" will concentrate on the revealing blouse she wore while Morse was questioning her.
 * [[Clear My Nam]
 * Climbing Climax: In the episode 'In Service of all the Dead', Morse chases the murderer up a church tower.
 * [[Con Ma]: 'Death of the Self.'
 * [[Danger Takes a Backsea]
 * Did They or Didn't They?: Morse and Emma Pickford
 * Disconnected by Death: In 'The Wolvercote Tongue'.
 * God', The Remorseful Day.
 * [[Everything Is Onlin]: In 'Masonic Mysteries', a villain manages to hack the police database, alter Morse's file and frame him. While said villain is a prisoner. Having taken a single computing course.
 * Then again, [[Hey, It's That Guy!|h] [[Hey, It's That Guy!|i] [[Star Wars|Palpatin]...
 * Christ Church is called "Wolsey College".
 * [[Infant Immortalit]: Subverted - in 'Dead on Time', we see the death of a baby in a flashback.
 * [[Literary Allusion Titl]: 'The Wench is Dead,' 'Greeks Bearing Gifts.'
 * [[Mythology Ga]: In Endeavour, the question of whether Morse's girlfriend at university was called Wendy (as in the books) or Susan (as in the series).
 * [[Naughty Birdwatchin]: George Jackson in 'The Dead of Jericho'.
 * [[Never Give the Captain a Straight Answe]: 'In Service of all the Dead', after Lewis spots a corpse from the top of a belltower, he tells the elderly and exhausted Morse to 'come and see for himself'.
 * Richard [[Watership Down|Brier] as the evil master of Lonsdale College.
 * [[Room Full of Craz]: In 'Masonic Mysteries' and 'Fat Chance'.
 * [[Scarpia Ultimatu]: In 'Death Is Now My Neighbour', a female character agrees to sleep with an Oxford Don if he'll give her husband the position of master. Afterward he laughs at her and says [[I Lied|he never had any intention of making him maste], since the husband had already slept with the don's wife.
 * [[Spanish Prisone]: Or in this case, a Russian Bride.
 * [[The Master (trope)|The Maste]: The Master of Lonsdale College in 'Death Is Now My Neighbour'.
 * [[This Is What the Building Will Look Lik]: The college that Baydon plans to endow in 'Twilight of the Gods'.
 * [[Wrong Genre Savv]: In the very first episiode, Morse becomes convinced he is in a modern day retelling of a Greek tragedy. 'Sophocles did it'
 * Younger Than They Look: It's amazing to realize that John Thaw was only 45 in the first series. It's the white hair.

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