Driven to Distraction

We're working our way through Morse, having come to it (again) via Endeavour, and then Lewis. We watched the series when it was originally shown, in the 1980s, when we were living just outside Oxford. When we had visitors, I used to bore them by pointing out where key scenes in Morse had taken place. Anyway - we've just got to this episode and I noticed that the scene where Patrick Malahide's character meets the girl from the bookshop after work and they chat in her car, was filmed here in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, where we live now, by the war memorial just off the market square - not in Oxford. I wonder why?

Inspector Morse (IM) can usually be relied on for 105 minutes of entertaining suspense and appealing Oxford scenery. At times, it also doubles as compelling drama, in such a way that supports the mystery instead of subtracting from it. Nonetheless, as with "Prime Suspect" and "Cracker", underneath IM's literary, respectable trappings and reputation there's a good deal of crime melodrama -- rather amusing in this setting of universities and culture. Still, the series usually aims beyond the alternately lame and ludicrous approach of "Driven to Distraction" (DtD) -- nor does it usually make troubling contentions about ethics and civil liberties. It's one thing to make your lead a flawed character who makes bad mistakes. It's another to turn him into an outright lawbreaker in Season 4.

The mystery is about a serial killer who ties up women with tape, then stabs them with a butcher knife. This is a premise that might tempt filmmakers to stay in psycho-monster horror movie territory, and sadly DtD obliges. It resorts to the most clichéd, cheap, and fear-mongering sort of film-making, led by a boatload of stalking scenes. They sound all the usual scary-movie notes -- sinister gloved figure follows young single women in a car at night and spies on them in their homes, while the lyrics "Why won't you behave" playing on jazz tapes supposedly raise the creepiness and ironic insight.

It ties into the most asinine scene I've yet to see in IM, truly just the stuff of second-rate slasher cheapies that has no place in this series. A character's calm companion suddenly morphs into a misogynist monster, ranting about "whores", "tarts" and more obscene female references before reaching for the Psycho knife and attacking the other person! How it ends looks like a spoof.

Funny to think this was written by Anthony Minghella, best known for making "serious" films like "The English Patient," "Cold Mountain," and "Iris."

If the stalking scenes recall "Dirty Harry," they're not the only ones that do. What's also dismaying about DtD is the broadside it launches against due process and the rule of law. That's what it does, try as it may to entertain a voice of protest in Sgt. Lewis.

Morse finds a chance to pore through suspect Jeremy Boynton's private belongings, and thinks it may give him some actual evidence on Boynton beyond his own personal certainty. This would be illegal since he has no warrant. Morse's sidekick Lewis recognizes this as illegal, a violation of someone's rights; he refuses to help. A vacillating cop follows him out, but Sgt. Maitland, whom DtD has established as smart, honest, and nice, enthusiastically supports Morse, citing concern that the rule of law helps people like Boynton but not the murder victims (as if it's either/or!).

"Dirty Harry" may go further by depicting civil rights fans as naive elitists, but DtD never takes its "hero" characters Morse & Maitland to task for what they do. It acts as if the real problem is more like an honest judgment error, not their abuse of police power and violation of people's rights. It puts a cozy touch on the violation by making it a bonding moment for M&M as they pull an all-nighter and share their interest in classical music. Despite Lewis's objection, he doesn't report the transgression, and keeps working with them, inviting us to assume we've only experienced a difference in opinion, not detectives committing abuses that really ought to get them thrown off the force. M&M face no consequences, and the series moves on as if this was just a minor mistake for its title character.

An ongoing series shouldn't compromise its "hero" to this degree if it wants to keep him someone to root for. What we at least needed was M&M fully owning up to their offenses. Most of all we needed an affirmation of the rule of law. That DtD's police heroes trash it to pursue their self-righteous agenda, and that the film's POV essentially acquiesces, is a sad low for IM.

It's easy for a thriller film to complain about the rule of law protecting obnoxious, offensive, possibly guilty people like Boynton. But the rule of law protects *you* too. Not least of all because, someday, a corrupt or lazy authority might think *you're* no better than Boynton, on account of what your politics are, where you go to worship, what you do in your bedroom, or maybe just because the authority doesn't like you. The rule of law stands between such people and your privacy. If they do commit abuses, the rule of law is a key tool in helping you establish the justice you are due.

DtD and its two M detectives cater to authoritarianism, a path made easier by the fear-mongering melodrama about a misogynist serial killer. Some people are only too glad to invoke such fears so that they may violate innocents' civil liberties. Before you know it, "violate rights, and come up with a rationale later" becomes a disturbing norm.

DtD was especially ironic for me, because I watched it after the episode "Second Time Around," an excellent drama that's quite honest about how a self-righteous authority's turn to illegality can create grave injustice. If you've seen it, recall the Morse line that goes like, "It's his certainty that troubles me," and contrast with what Morse does in DtD.

As a Driving Instructor in and around the London area, this episode has always had a special place in my memory from way back when. As a Morse 'piece' it probably ranks just below the series very best episodes, but is enthralling nonetheless. Great acting as always, a seedy killer, a clever twist to the Morse know all attitude and spotting nearby locations remains a good quiz amongst those in the know.

Just one correction though, the website has an error in claiming the location for the Oxford Driving Centre is the Government's TRRL. This was actually filmed at the Harrow Driving Centre in North London(now long gone), as anyone who has worked there can readily testify. Many times i have walked that small pathway trodden by Morse and Lewis and also sat around within the 'simulator' room. Funny anecdotes from colleagues who were present during the filming are also remembered with affection, as can be seen from the odd glimpses of actual working cars in the background shots.

It is entirely possible that the later scenes set on the skid-pan were filmed at the TRRL but the earlier Driving Centre sequences were based in Harrow.

A highly recommended episode; search it out and enjoy.

This episode was hard to watch at times. Morse's behavior here is over the top. To see him as the least bit admirable, when he dismantles a man's rights and nearly gets him killed, was hard for me. Morse hones in on one suspect from the beginning. The guy is a masher and a threatening figure, and Morse doesn't like him. The lengths he goes through causes Lewis to see him as a lawbreaker and less than what he claims to be. Still, the case where women are being stalked and killed in their homes is quite engaging. I also enjoyed Morse's driving lessons.

Driven To Distraction is a somewhat haunting episode. What makes it so is the song playing before a murder happens, the song itself is quite haunting, and I always think it as the murderer's motif. The plot consists of a murdered woman in her flat, and the connection seems to be with a car dealer. It is certainly an intriguing entry into the wonderful series of Inspector Morse, and has so much to recommend it. When Morse tells Lewis of a dying friend and his car, this is a tribute to the original producer Kenny McBain, who sadly died in 1989, and may I say it was a very thoughtful one. The writing is unusually reflective here, and it works to an advantage. As usual Thaw and Whately shine as Morse and Lewis, as does James Grout as Strange, I loved the scene when Strange finds Morse lying on the bed and starts questioning his judgement. The supporting actors are also impressive, with Patrick Malahide deliciously seedy as Jeremy Boynton, and Mary Jo Randle nicely restrained yet humorous at times as Sergeant Maitland. In this episode, Morse and Lewis differentiate in opinion once again, and I liked the fact that Lewis solves the crime instead of Morse, it shows different sides to the characters, and the climax was what I'd call tyre-screeching. All in all, a thoughtful and well done episode, with a 10/10. Bethany Cox