The Sins of the Fathers

An intriguing and interesting episode of Morse. Considering Morse's love for beer it was inevitable that we'd have a beer-themed episode and here it is - a murder in a brewery. Lewis even remarks to Morse at the beginning that he should be in his element.

In addition to the murder mystery there's a few interesting sub-plots going on. Similar to S3 E1 - Ghost in the Machine - Morse has a run-in with some posh types who think even the police are at their beck and call. This time it's Old Money, rather than the aristocracy.

Some good banter between Morse and Lewis too. Lewis gets in some good jibes.

On the subject of the fun side, Dr Russell and, going back further, Max are sorely missed. They still haven't been replaced with anyone interesting. The pathology side was always a wonderfully engaging aspect of Morse and that has now fallen by the wayside.

A good story with lots of surprises though the director, Peter Hammond, just couldn't stop himself from shooting the character's reflections off of as many mirrors and any other reflect-able items that might be around as possible. But that was not enough, as any pane of glass about also had to be shot through. And one more thing. The back's of John Thaw's ears get top billing in that half of the the back of Morse's head was shot so often during police interviews. Peter Hammond's three "Morses" were definitely the darkest shot episodes in the series -- especially "Service of All the Dead."

I didn't see Colin Dexter's mug in this episode.

As many of the other reviewers, I , who really love this excellent series, was appalled and also distracted by this very very bad director, who seemed more keen to show his arty farty vision of how to visualize a detective story then that he was interested in the actors and the story itself. Indeed, lots of glasreflections, windows and extreme and unnecessary close ups; A real bummer, this one !! Sad to say.

There was nothing interesting or entertaining about this episode apart from maybe one scene with only Morse and Lewis in it. The other characters were deadly boring as was the so called plot. Not even much in the way of beautiful scenery of Oxford. I skipped many parts just to somehow get through it all.

The Sins of the Fathers is a fine episode, it's a smart mystery, with some terrific characters, and an ending that offers a real surprise. It's a mystery that gets the grey matter working, you can put the pieces together.

It is a fair observation that the direction of this one is a bit off, particularly when you compare it to other episodes, the flashbacks and dream sequences, but it's such a minor fault that it didn't spoil my enjoyment at all.

Many scenes I enjoyed very much, Morse's first encounter with the family being the best of them.

Isabel Dean is the real standout, she is wonderful in her final acting role, a character that is stoic, superior and bound up in self importance, Lionel Jeffries is equally as good as her hard of hearing, but fully aware husband.

Thoroughly enjoyable, 8/10.