Hello everyone. I hope this post finds you all well. Here is the October 2020 calendar for my Twitch Streams of the Lewis series.
Tuesday, 29th September – Discussion on the episode, DOWN AMONG THE FEARFUL.
Thursday, 1st October – Full episode watch with discussion, THE QUALITY OF MERCY.
Sunday, 4th October – Watch full episode, THE RAMBLIN’ BOY.
Tuesday, 6th October – Discussion on the episode, THE RAMBLIN BOY.
Thursday, 8th October – Full episode watch with discussion, THE POINT OF VANISHING.
Sunday, 11th October – Watch full episode, INTELLIGENT DESIGN.
Tuesday, 13th October – Discussion on the episode, INTELLIGENT DESIGN.
Thursday, 15th October – Full episode watch with discussion, COUNTER CULTURE BLUES. (Final Thursday Stream)
Sunday, 18th October – Watch full episode, ENTRY WOUNDS.
Tuesday, 20th October – Discussion on the episode, ENTRY WOUNDS.
Sunday, 25th October – Watch full episode, THE LIONS OF NEMEA.
Tuesday, 27th October – Discussion on the episode, THE LIONS OF NEMEA.
Sunday, 1st November – Watch full episode, BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL.
Sunday streams start at 8pm BST
Tuesday and Thursday streams start at 7pm BST
The UK clocks go back at 2pm 25th October and so return to GMT.
Downloadable calendar below.
October twitch streams WORD DOC
Thanks, Chris. I will add them to my planner. This is very helpful.
Hello Chris — this is “worsepotato” from twitch. You were talking about putting the link to my new discord server up on facebook, but I’m looking at the group page now and it is so large (over 1000 people) that even a fraction of that group would make the server unmanageable immediately. I will think about how to help all the interested parties find it without overloading it or making anyone feel left out. Thanks again and get some sleep!
Hi WP. If you want, send the URL via email to me and I will put it up on the Twitch stream chat this Thursday and Sunday.
Chris, thanks for the calendar update.
I did notice that, after the Thursday rewatches end, Tuesday will remain the day for discussing the Sunday episode, instead of switching back to Wednesday as it was originally. I just wanted to verify that that is correct (for me, any day is fine).
Hi Nate. I thought it better to have it on Tuesday and not mix things up at this juncture. Once we start watching the Endeavour series then I may go back to Wednesday.
As we have now, of course, watched the final Thursday Twitch live stream, thank you Chris, for hosting these very interesting, extra sessions. I have thoroughly enjoyed discussing these Lewis episodes, and on further reflection, I would like to share a few more thoughts on the last Lewis episode, we saw on Twitch, Counter Culture Blues.
I believe there is another small plot hole, which I failed to mention on Thursday. This is why I will stand by the original score I awarded the episode, which was 5 out of 10. Needless to say, this is only my opinion. To detail this slight plot hole, Lewis and Hathaway visit the Red Crest Sanctuary, or Orphanage, as Lewis called it, where the young murdered teenage boy had lived, to find out his next of kin. They are told his mother had died a junkie, and his father was unknown, but he has a grandmother, who is still alive, called Maureen Little. Hathaway proceeds to the place where Maureen worked, the JCNB building, and a cleaner lady, divulges to Hathaway, that Maureen, was sacked for two consecutive days of absence from work.
A little later at Martyr’s Memorial, Lewis asks Hathway, if he discovered where Maureen lived, and Hathaway says, that the company apparently, did not keep details of menial workers. However, Hathaway then explained, that the cleaner lady said, Maureen lived in a house in Abingdon. Hathaway tells Lewis he has been to that house, but there was no sign of Maureen.
Anyway, given the eventual conclusion of this episode, it seems to me, not enough thorough police work was carried out by Lewis and Hathaway, relating to what I have just described. I suppose it is easy talking in hindsight. Should have we expected the detectives, the dynamic duo, to immediately connect the disappearance of Maureen Little, with the sudden arrival of an apparently long lost pop star, Esme Ford, who had supposedly committed suicide 35 years before? Perhaps, it is difficult to leap to that connection quickly, but nevertheless, it makes you wonder how extensively Hathaway searched Maureen’s house? Did he speak to the neighbours and carry out standard house-to-house calls? If he had, he may have uncovered a lot more information about Maureen, and more importantly, discovered, what she looked like. In addition, why didn’t Lewis or Hathaway look into whether Little was Maureen’s maiden name or her marriage name. As it turned out, her maiden name was Ford, and she was the sister of the long lost and dead pop star, Esme. Surely, a reference to checking Somerset House, which has a record of all marriage certificates, should have been on the agenda for the Oxfordshire police, in the writing of this episode.
We, of course, finally find out, that Maureen had been trying to impersonate her long gone sister, Esme, under the auspices of the manager of Esme’s old band, Midnight Addiction. In trying to revive the band, with all of its old members, including an apparent return of the dead from Esme, the manager, Venon Oxe, realised other band members, associates, and a relative, were going to spoil this secret deception. Bone, Samantha Wheeler and Franco, all smelt a rat, and were not convinced Esme, was, who she said she was. This was alongside, Maureen’s relative, the grandson, from the Red Crest Sanctuary, who wanted to meet his grandmother for the first time, which would have also revealed the crooked chicanery, namely that Esme was dead. Therefore, Vernon decided that these people had to be murdered in elaborate ways, to maintain the secret, and to keep up his hopes that the band could be revitalized again.
I was possibly hypercritical in my above comments. Nonetheless, I still maintain, that if the “dynamic duo” had asked for particular details kept at Somerset House, they would have found out Maureen Little’s maiden name was Ford. However, you still might say, Ford, is a relatively common surname. All the same, I believe Somerset House, also has a record of birth certificates, so it could have been ascertained, when Maureen was born, and who her parents were, which would have connected Maureen to Esme. Anyway, I suppose the Oxfordshire detectives did not realise, finding the “missing” grandmother of the murdered teenage boy, from the “Orphanage”, would be so important. As I have said though, unusually, Lewis and Hathaway were not as thorough and meticulous, as perhaps they could have been, at finding out more information relating to this “missing” next of kin.
Hi James, you do point out some logical , shall we say overlooked rather than neglectful, detective work. I’m wondering, though, if it just a matter of expediency in moving the suspense/mystery along. Too much discovery too soon might make it too predictable and thereby too boring. You certainly delve into many aspects of the plots and characters which always gives me food for thought and certainly point out things that I missed.
Hi Kathleen. Thanks for taking the time to read my comments and for kindly replying. I’m not sure, if I “saw” you tonight, on Chris’s Tuesday evening, Twitch discussion. Then again, perhaps it starts at a difficult time for you (early afternoon), given that you live in Florida, if I have remembered correctly.
I certainly agree with you, if parts of the investigation had focused more closely, on what I previously mentioned in my remarks above, and if all those police checks had been very thorough, the case would have been solved too quickly. Bearing in mind, that Lewis is a feature length, detective crime drama, the suspense and mystery for the audience would not have been there for long enough, and the “whodunnit”, would have revealed itself too soon.
However, there was possibly not enough depth and complexity to this episode, which meant perhaps the writer had to leave out an aspect to the case, the police would sometimes follow through, in order to keep the audience from guessing the secret, that was at the heart of the episode. As a result, there was arguably, a weakness to the story. Maybe, it wasn’t the perfect fit for a one hour and thirty minutes mystery, and other small sub-plots were introduced, that didn’t greatly add anything of value, just to pad or fill out the episode. For example, the blackmailing of Kitten. As I said before, this is only my opinion, and you could claim, I am being hypercritical.
One thing I forgot to mention before, was Lewis and Hathaway, of course, had linked the murdered boy, Lucas Emerton, to the reforming rock band. When they had discovered his body, which had been run over by a vehicle several times, they realised, with Dr. Laura Hobson’s help, it had been moved. The hammerite paint found on the victim, enabled Lewis to work out, Lucas had been killed, just outside the large imposing gate of the rock band’s mansion. If they had then looked further into the boy’s next of kin details, the grandmother, they would have uncovered, why there was a link to the band. This is easy to say after the event, and with hindsight, but I forgot to mention in my previous comments, this link between the dead boy and the band, the police had connected together.
To continue my analysis, I thought some parts of the episode were slightly flat, and I reckon a bit more excitement could have been created, if there had been a little more argy-bargy between Lewis and Hathaway. For instance, Hathaway could have disagreed with Lewis, and gone above his head to Ch. Supt. Innocent, relating to Esme’s supposed fake suicide. Usually, the police would show a degree of interest, in a person suddenly returning from the dead, given all the potential repercussions, if others knew about it, such as a full life insurance policy, being illegally paid out to a relative.
Having said all this, Innocent wasn’t that keen on questioning Richie Maguire in the first place, as he was wealthy and contributed to the Police pension fund. In addition, Lewis didn’t want to alert the media about Esme’s so-called return, as enough of a fuss had already been initiated, when Felipe, one of the servants for the band, had grassed to the press about Bone’s death. Furthermore, I felt Lewis was understandably star-struck by the old rockers, it brought back fond memories of his youth, nostalgia you could say, which meant he wasn’t too keen on questioning or arresting members of the band, at least not initially. However, Hathaway might have thought, Lewis was letting his feelings get in the way, of objectively carrying out his duty, so he could have disagreed with this approach, and taken the supposedly returning Esme, straight away, into the police station for questioning, about the alleged “fake” suicide. This would have livened up the episode, in my view.
Finally, my impression was that Lewis and Hathaway spent too long in this episode, not getting anywhere. There should have been more questioning, and a few more arrests. The story was a little slow, and the investigation was not gradually opening or untying the mystery. There was no real progress relating to the murders, until very late in the episode, when the young black orphan, Declan, brought into the police station, an old photo/poster of Esme and her sister Maureen, which Lucas had kept through his childhood. This finally enabled the case to be solved. Nonetheless, instead of a sudden solving of the case, I would have preferred Lewis and Hathaway, to have progressively, piece-by-piece, got to the bottom of this curious puzzle. Anyway, I will leave it there, it is only my view, and it has to be said, a below par Lewis episode, is still a lot better than other numerous television programmes.
Yes I agree with your assessments of this sloppy investigation. I also think that this episode was one that could have been left out of the entire series with no loss. It was a silly plot and the characters over the top. As far as Innocent being influenced/pressured by higher ups and those with connections to the department, that is a common theme all throughout the Morse and Endeavour series. CS Strange ( in the original Morse series) and Bright are constantly trying to rein in Morse’s and Thursday’s investigations and the pressure even extends to Bright’s wife, i.e. she sits on a committee with so and so, etc.
Thanks Kathleen for your reply, and I very much agree with what you have just said. I look forward to another conversation with you, on all things related to the Morse universe, in the foreseeable future.