The Settling of the Sun

The worst Morse episode I have seen. Poorly scripted, poorly photographed, poorly lit and irritating performances. You will be lucky to last beyond the first 10 minutes of this dire story. Morse is lecherous, Jane is annoying, Sir Wilfred a creep and Lewis hardly appears!! Episodes before and since have been much better than this one. Even the appearances of Derek Fowlds cannot lift this beyond poor. Most of the characters are half-lit, the camera is usually focused on theor feet or up their nostrils and half the time there is silence, even in the middle of dialogue. Some characters (eg Supt Dewar) appear that any reason why.

More a case of Inspector Clouseau than Morse, I'm afraid. The solution to the mystery of a murdered Japanese student is silly, and the direction is freakish. It just isn't believable at all and is one of the worst episodes in the Morse canon. Thank heaven this is an abberation. Normally Morse is much better than this.

I agree this is not one of the best episodes. The plot line, performances and production are all below the usual standard. And the references to "Japs", drugs, and WW2 certainly do not age well but that's how it works. However I am an Inspector Morse fan. I watched it as a student when it first started in the late 1980s, have seen every episode several times and still like dipping in now and then on a wet Sunday afternoon.

What I DON'T understand is all the negative reviews starting "I have never liked Inspector Morse..." Why bother watching it in that case? Just so you can enjoy trashing it?

Having set the crossword competition for a group of visiting foreign students, Morse attends the college dinner to present a prize. Proceedings are halted, when Japanese student Yukio Li is found dead, having been killed in a seemingly ritualistic manner.

One of those episodes that I think you somehow need to be in the mood for, other episodes like Masonic Mysteries, Driven to Distraction etc. I could watch anytime, not this one. It's a good storyline, if the anti Japanese feeling is a little strong. It's the characters I have some issue with, none are particularly appealing, warm or endearing. Jane is certainly unpleasant, trying at every opportunity to escape Morse's constant attention. Sir Wilfred Mulryne is utterly odious, and as for the Welsh porter!!

Even though I didn't care for the characters, that's not to say the performances aren't up to scratch. I think Anna Calder Marshall is excellent, you almost see Jane building to that crescendo, her eventual outburst. Avis Bunnage is also superb, an actress I know little of, other then seeing her as the wonderful wife of Rigsby, Veronica.

Strong story, excellent performances, but clunky production values, it looks grainy, doesn't have the slick camera-work you see in later episodes.

I enjoyed it, what i'd call a heavy episode, it's still very, very good though. 8/10

I had seen the Inspector Morse series some years ago, and was re-viewing episodes when I started watching the prequel series, "Endeavour." I agree with the issues others had with the writing and somewhat clumsy editing and camera work, and I found some elements to be rather anachronistic. Had it been set in the mid- to late sixties, when "Endeavour" is set, where you had characters like Thursday who were war veterans with relatively recent memories of WWII, the anti Asian bias may have been more persuasive. Also, at one point a girl (on of a group of foreign students) makes an observation that all of the books in a room are written by men - again, something that seemed more 1960s rising-of-women's-lobe era than the late '80s, And a lot of the dialogue seemed very disjointed and artificial - people were making remarks at one another rather than conversing. On the plus side, the Morse series, like the Endeavour series, understands the importance of ensemble, something that I wish other British mystery series offered.