Second Time Around

Excellent episode. Starts intriguingly enough and through solid police work we pretty soon have a suspect that ticks all the boxes. Things are never that easy in Morseworld though.

From then we get layers of plot, with a 14-year-old unsolved mystery becoming the focus of investigations. It's great how the investigations into the two murders overlap and it makes for enthralling watching.

On that note, this is one of the Morse episodes that is closest to good old-fashioned police work. Often Morse's mysteries are solved in the Poirot way: deduce what happens, accuse the murderer of the crime, they confess. Makes for intriguing viewing but it's not very realistic.

This is thus more realistic (though the final twist does involve the Poirot Method).

Inspector Morse is one of those policemen you wished existed in the real world. Maybe they do. Maybe they don't.

This story shows Morse and the whole series at its very best.

If you look through the mist of depravity, then It's a beautiful story in many ways. The acting is impeccable. The story is coherent and realistic.

John Thaw was better. That means Morse was never better.

Cativating from the start and never fails to bring a tear.

Perhaps it's the sadness around the unsolved murder of a young girl that makes this so special? The sense that, not only have "we" not been able to keep a child safe, but that "we" have not been able to bring the murderer to justice.

It also feels perfectly paced, giving the investigation the time it needs to work its way to a conclusion. (And the gentle and terse final exchange between Morse and Lewis, seems a perfect note on which to end the episode.)

There's some wonderful writing here and some wonderful performances. I especially enjoyed the performances of Kenneth Colley as Detective Chief Inspector Patrick Dawson and Helena McCarthy as Rose Lapsley (the grandmother of the murdered girl). (I didn't rate the performances of Christopher Eccleston and Pat Heywood, who played Terrence Mitchell and his mother. I thought they were a little too theatrical.)

When a master detective dies in his living room, Morse feels his death intensely. It seems they were trained at the same place and had great respect for one another. In the process of investigation, an old case, involving the death of an eight year old girl, brings a bulldog investigator back on the prowl. This man is incredibly smug and resentful of Morse. He hates the laws restricting what one can do to a witness to get at the truth. Soon a list of people who could be helpful, including the man who was convicted outside of court by the public, are arranged and questioned. Well done piece to say the least.

Following on from the sheer brilliance of Masonic Mysteries is Second Time Around, Series five's opener, and a definite classic. This boasts a deep, harrowing, and sad story, a first rate cast, sublime music, and some of the most beautiful filming seen on the show.

The story is certainly a deep one, it manages to see Morse locked in conflict with a colleague, who holds different values, and sees him dealing with the tragedy of a little girl's death from some years back. Superbly acted, Kenneth Colley, Ann Bell, Oliver Ford Davies and a young Christopher Eccleston are all brilliant. The music is just incredible, that version of Puccini's Senza Mamma is sublime. The filming left me speechless, at times it's glorious, one scene in particular sees Morse and Lewis look out at a fishing boat, it's almost picture postcard material.

Brilliant.