Welcome to a new post. I hope you enjoy this post.

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Hello everyone and welcome to a new post. Recently, I created two posts on Morse’s ever changing living room. While I wrote those posts and watched the episodes, it occurred to me that Morse’s office also changes substantially through the series: from the actual office to the posters on the wall.

I hope you enjoy this post. Part two will be posted next week.

Up first, of course, is

The Dead of Jericho.

The viewers first look at Morse’s office is around the one hour and four minute mark.

I’m not sure what this stone object is on Morse’s deck. It may be an ink well. There is also what looks like an ink blotter adjacent to the ‘ink well.’ On the wall behind Morse is a hatch into the next door room. There is also a Rolodex rotary business card holder. There are two phones on the desk. Is one for outgoing calls and the larger one for internal calls? There is a portable radio. There is also a book but I can’t make out what the book is.

Behind Lewis are charts which appear to be colour coded. Charts about what?

Behind Lewis is the door to the office, so directly opposite Morse’s desk. The office doesn’t appear big enough to hold two desks, one for Lewis and Morse.

The external shots of police station were filmed at Aldates Police Station on St Aldates Road also known as the A420.

At around one hour and 23 minutes we get a second look at the office.

On the left we can see a small table with files. There is an addition to Morse’s desk in the shape on pens and pencils in a holder of some kind.

On the left, as indicated by the red arrow, there is a chair. It seems it is a one man office.

Up next,

The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn.

Morse’s office around the 38 minute mark. First we see the contents of Nicholas Quinn’s pockets.

We get a different view of Morse’s office from The Dead of Jericho episode.

Now we see a filing cabinet with box files behind the door.

To Morse’s left there is a desk with box folders. This piece of office furniture was not seen in The Dead of Jericho episode.

Now we see a wall with a calendar. To Lewis’s left it looks like something has been ripped off the wall.

Back to the office at one hour and three minutes.

High up on the wall we can see what looks like to be either a photograph during Morse’s time in the army or during his police training days.

Onward to,

Service of All the Dead.

The office shown around the one hour and 17 minutes.

The larger of the two phones is no longer there but there is now a wire letter rack.

Only the one short scene in this episode so on to the next,

The Wolvercote Tongue.

At one hour and 21 minutes we see a new, bigger office.

The office is slightly bigger and now has room for Lewis and a desk. Unlike the previous office we can see a sign on the door reading, ‘Chief Inspector Morse’.

Morse’s desk can also be seen in the same scene.

He now has a calendar and what looks like an index box behind it. He has a different radio as well as a desk lamp.. The walls are less bare than the previous office.

There is a postcard attached to the blackboard. Unfortunately, I can’t make out what the it is a picture of.

Unlike the previous office the office window has bars.

We revisit the office at around one hour and 32 minutes.

Behind Lewis we see for the first time, posters on the wall. To Lewis’s right is a poster for Verdi’s Otello. Directly behind Lewis is a poster advertising a week of various operas; The Trojans by Hector Berlioz, Rossini’s, The Barber of Seville, La bohème by Giacomo Puccini and Un Ballo in Maschera by Verdi.

We get a better look at the posters in the episode, Last Bus to Woodstock.

Up next,

Last Seen Wearing.

We see the office within the first four minutes and it’s changed from the previous episode in respect to it’s layout.

Morse’s desk is no longer against the left hand wall as we look at the screenshot above. That space has been filled by filing cabinets. Morse’s desk has now moved into the same position it was in the first episode though of course it is now a different office from then.

The phone has changed back to an old fashioned type. On the opposite side of the desk there is, once again, a second phone. No radio.

At around 13 minutes we return to the office. Lewis’s desk appears to have been removed.

Instead of Lewis’s desk we have filing trays.

Or is that Lewis’s desk behind him? If it is where is the typewriter we saw in the previous episode on his desk?

We are back in Morse’s office at around 37 minutes.

The telephone has changed position.

In this scene we now see that Lewis’s desk IS still in Morse’s office.

Back to the office at around the one hour and one minute mark.

Next we have,

Settling of the Sun.

No office scenes.

Last Bus to Woodstock.

Around the 11 minute mark we are in Morse’s office. We get a better look at the posters on the wall.

Morse’s radio is back but there are now no phones on his desk. Why is there an ink blotter on his desk?

Unlike the last episode, here we get a better look at Lewis’s desk.

In the same scene when Lewis walks into the office we get a better look at the wall behind Lewis’s desk.

The blue arrow indicates the photo we saw in the first episode. The red arrow indicates what looks like a flyer for what I can’t make out.

In the same scene we see an ashtray on the window sill. But Morse and Lewis don’t smoke. However, John Thaw did.

We see a calendar with the date, 1987, on it.

The episode was broadcast in 1988 but filmed in 1987.

We are back in the office around the 35 minute mark. We get another view of the office.

Back to the office at around one hour and four minutes. Once again we get another different view of the office.

We see a fireplace and a photograph on the fireplace.

On to the next episode.

Ghost in the Machine.

No office scenes.

The Last Enemy.

Big changes regarding the office. Firstly, it’s a different office.

We know it’s a different office from only one aspect; the door. The door in this office is opposite from where it was before and also it opens differently as can be seen from this screenshot from the Wolver cote Tongue episode, (see the screenshot below).

A good view of the office is shown in the same scene.

Morse now has two desks one with an electric typewriter. There is also a huge Rolodex, different filing cabinets. No fireplace in this office. Morse once again has a telephone on his desk and what looks like a tape recorder.

He now has a radio on a shelf on the wall behind him. There is a new poster on the wall.

The poster appears to advertise The Oakland Symphony.

Another view of the office in the same scene.

No sign of the posters shown on earlier episodes.

Morse reading, Gramophone magazine. It’s a British monthly magazine about classical music.

Back to the office around the 59 minute mark.

The bars on the windows have gone and are now replaced with blinds.

To the right of Morse there is, apart from the filing cabinet, a safe. For Morse’s rare recordings. 😜😉

Back to the office at one hour and 25 minutes.

 

Morse’s coffee cup and aspirins can still be seen on the desk from the first office scene.

Back to the office near the end of the episode.

Next we have,

Deceived by Flight.

Morse’s office within the first minute.

Morse is listening to the radio. It’s a different radio to the one that we first saw on the shelf in The Last Enemy episode, (see screenshot below).

The second scene from this episode is at around three minutes.

The desk I thought was a second Morse desk turns out to be Lewis’s desk.

Though in my defence why was the typewriter facing Morse in The Last Enemy episode, (see screenshot below).

Back to the office at one hour and 22 minutes.

Morse now has two paper trays when in the previous scene there was only one.

In this office is a fireplace that has been blocked up.

I’m unsure what the two objects are shown by the red arrows. The one on the right of the picture looks like a cigar box. Here is a better look at it.

Next we have,

The Secret of Bay 5B.

First and only scene around the 59 minute mark.

The Infernal Serpent.

No office scenes.

Sins of the Fathers.

First scene at around 34 minutes. A clock appears on the mantlepiece for the first time.

We have yet another make of radio/tape recorder.

There is a large cabinet against the wall behind Lewis and Morse. In the episode Deceived by Flight there were two against that particular wall, (see screenshot below).

The slated window blinds that we saw in the last few episodes have been replaced.

Back to the office at around 59 minutes.

Up next,

Driven to Distraction.

No office scenes as the police use a flat as their office while investigating the murders.

Masonic Mysteries.

First office scene at around 27 minutes.

In the same scene we see the Oakland Symphony poster for the first time since the Deceived by Flight episode.

A new poster is on the wall.

I can’t see enough, as yet, to identify it. It’s positioned behind Morse’s desk.

The map behind Lewis’s desk has changed.

In the episode Sins of the Fathers it was different, (see screenshot below).

At around the one hour and 38 minute mark we have the final office scene from this episode.

Behind Morse we can see a small version of the advertising poster for the opera that Morse would have been a part of.

Next,

Second Time Around.

First office scene at, 19 minutes. The map behind Lewis ahs changed again and Lewis now has a computer on his desk.

It’s a different office again. From the screenshot below we can see it’s a different type of door.

Previously, the door was white and solid. No glass panels.

We now have a chunky large, brown piece of furniture.

In the office scene at around 40 minutes we see that Morse has a new desk.

Behind the right hand shoulder of Morse we see a new poster. It’s a print of a painting by Jean-Honore Fragonard in 1767 and the painting is called The Swing.

I created a video about this painting. Click HERE to watch the video on Youtube.

Something else that points to a new office is that the window frames are brown when before they were white.

The slated blinds are back.

In the same scene we get some more views of the office.

Another office scene around one hour and seven minutes.

The radio has changed again. It’s went from being a radio/tape recorder to just a radio.

At around one hour and ten minutes we get a good view of the office.

Another office scene at around one hour and 20 minutes.

I think that grey box on Morse’s desk is a Dictaphone.

We now see drawings by Lewis’s children on the walls behind Lewis’s desk.

 

I’m not sure if the poster, indicated by the red arrow, is one of Morse’s opera posters or a police poster.

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That’s all for now. next week I will publish the second part of this post. I hope you enjoyed it.

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