Service of All the Dead

There was something rather endless about this episode. Part of the problem was that we had characters misidentified. When a man is found stabbed in a church, Morse is brought in. This quickly leads to him becoming enamored with a woman who is employed by the church. She is in control of cleaning and sprucing up the church. It is obvious that she also participates in other ways. As time goes by, we begin to have a series of murders or suicides, all of which are connected. What is interesting is that the service that began all this was never announced to the congregation but there were thirteen participants. A negative factor, to me, was Morse's hurried relationship with the woman. Still, even though this was not the best episode, it still is superior to most of its kind.

This is a superb episode in the Morse canon and improves upon repeated viewing. The direction and camera work is wonderful, full of quirky angles, dark lighting, riveting close-ups, unusual tracking shots. The later episodes in this brilliant show were a little more bland and safe regarding the cinematography. It's certainly not a weak episode, but definitely one of the more challenging ones. It has a great late 80's feel to it.. the grey summer, the parked 80's cars, the females dresses and hair styles. John Thaw and Kevin Whately play their respective roles with realism and warmth. I think I prefer this earlier version of Thaw's Morse rather than the pompous and aloof persona of the later episodes.

Plot issues aside (and this is one of the worst plots in the entire series - and, yeah, completely cringe -worthy "romance") - this is shot so terribly that it interferes with the very bad plot. The director only wanted to shoot through something else (windows, candles, bushes), or super up close shots done with a handheld camera to induce motion sickness and obscure what is going on, or off a mirror. I mean - it's like a film student gone wild with showy experimental shots that serve no purpose and directly impede storytelling. They should show this in film school as an example of what not to do.

I love Morse, and Lewis...and later - Endeavor. Watched all of these with my mum back then and have rewatched them all over the years. This one, however, is utterly dreadful!

I love any mystery that keeps me guessing and this was one of them. I found the church a great atmospheric creepy place for murder. Morse's attempt at relationships show a man who's plainly out of practice and you have to feel sorry for him. I never trusted the woman of his affections in this episode....but...well you'll see. The camaraderie between Morse and Lewis just gets better and better with each episode. There is a homage to Hitchcock's Vertigo..All in all a very intriguing storyline. Just one thing, Morse always seems to get the crap knocked out of him in every episode..time for another pint.

I have had a lifetime of brushes with the figure of Morse and have resolved to delve deeper into the character/earlier works. Although I've read a full Morse novel by Colin Dexter, seen a fair bit of the Endeavour TV prequels (multiple series) and seen a few episodes of the Inspector Lewis TV sequels, "Service of All the Dead" is actually the first of the original Morse TV show episodes I've watched in full and as an adult. And it surprised me by impressing me--and unsettling me, not an easy feat.

As you can tell from the above, I have had only a semi-solid impression of Morse the character. I decided to dive into focused viewings of the original TV adaptations--and aside from a sharp-tongued, opera-loving guv'nor and his less urbane sidekick, I wasn't sure what to expect.

I didn't expect what "Service" offered: less-common cinematography (e.g. weird, almost voyeuristic camera angles; reflections of actors in objects other than mirrors) and editing choices plus stark, un-melodramatic murder and suicide tableaux, all combining to leave an unsettling impression on the viewer. The creepy "high church" Anglican choral and discordant organ music contributed to the effect.

As I was watching, I felt a progressive sense of dread, one that was often fulfilled/confirmed. It's the polar opposite to the atmosphere of a show like, say, Midsomer Murders, which even in its earliest 90s episodes was saturated with an (enjoyable) air of camp and with perpetually low stakes. Service, like Midsomer, has a rather high number of connected murders in short order---but the murders in Service always feel ominous, the stakes remaining high, even intensifying.

Having read a Colin Dexter novel, I expected Morse's dealings with women to be fraught with tiresome (by this point in the history of literature) and belittling female cliches. And sure enough, "Service" includes those...however, I was willing to overlook that silliness (and Morse's unprofessionalism in dealing with female witnesses) because of the arresting performance of Angela Morant.

She plays a beautiful, raven-haired, late 40s caretaker of both the local church and her disabled mother. I wished she could have played a more original character but she did it very well and I couldn't look away when she was on screen. The final scene with her, with the famous Morse musical score by Barrington Pheloung (RIP as of 18 days ago) beginning to play, was enough to make me forgive the slightly lacking characterization.

That plot is why I gave 8 stars rather than 10. It suddenly, in the last 10 minutes of the episode, became convoluted, with a somewhat unlikely twist stubbornly half-concealed until the last possible minute.

I can't get worked up denouncing the plot development, though. The rest of the episode was so enjoyably tense and memorable that I think it's worth owning and rewatching. I agree with a previous reviewer that Lewis' facial expressions during a perilous moment for a suspect were excellent, and the director's and editors' choices to hold the shot, watching his expression unfold, were so incredibly effective compared to a standard TV show which would have cut away after the requisite three seconds.

I'm really excited now to continue my deep dive into the Morse TV films of the 80s and 90s. I was too young then to appreciate this character and the combined efforts of the TV writers, director and editors. A job well done by all.