Hello, goodbye
-
- June
- 19
The good news is that PBS’ “Masterpiece Mystery!” is back for the summer, with new cases and a new face: The marvelously arch Alan Cumming is now the series’ host.
The bad news is that the series’ return marks the swan songs of two of its stalwarts — Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle (Michael Kitchen), who’s been keeping the British homefront safe in World War II-era Hastings, and aristocratic Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley (Nathaniel Parker). I guess all good things must end. Still, as the Brits would say, bit of a blow.At least we still have Foyle (July 13-27) and Lynley (Aug. 10 and 17) to help us while away the soft season. First, though, we welcome back “Inspector Lewis” (June 22-July 6), starring Kevin Whately as Detective Inspector Robbie Lewis, who’s got his hands full with criminal goings-on among the academic set in Oxford. (The smarter they are, the more tricks they have up their sleeves.)
“Mystery!” buffs remember Whately, of course, as Sgt. Lewis, the hapless sidekick of the cultured, curmudgeonly Inspector Morse, played with irresistible irascibility by John Thaw. Indeed, Morse’s ghost — and Thaw’s, for that matter — hovers over the series. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Lewis the series and the character may not have their predecessors’ incandescence, but there’s something moving about watching a quietly gifted man come into his own. And Lewis treats his partner, a seminarian-turned-copper played with idiosyncratic charm by Laurence Fox, far better than Morse ever treated him.
It’s great to have the Oxford locale back, along with some of the “Morse” regulars, while the departures from “Morse” work just as well. How clever to give Lewis a boss who happens to be a maturely alluring woman.
But then that’s part of what makes these British series superior to so much of American TV. Lewis, Foyle, Lynley and the people in their circles aren’t particularly young or beautiful. They’re wrinkled and rumpled, with messy professional lives that spill into their private ones and vice versa. In other words, they’re true characters, truly realized. It’s good to be among them, if only for a time.
Finally, a world about Cumming, seen below in a photo courtesy of Riker Brothers for “Masterpiece.”
The edgy star of Broadway’s “Cabaret” would hardly seem to be the obvious choice to introduce Miss Marple. But apparently, he was a huge fan of the chic Diana Rigg as the previous host. And while the new introduction is more abstract and less Agatha Christie-ish, there he is, looking and sounding elegant in his three-piece suits, swept-back hair and slight Scottish brogue.
Plus, his manner is perfect, that of a murder witness who knows more than he’s letting on.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 5:14 pm by Georgette Gouveia.
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Foyle and Lynley are ending? That’s a right shame. Foyle is some of the best TV I’ve seen in the last few years – genuinely moving.
I welcome Alan Cumming, but I haven’t been able to find an answer as to why Diana Rigg no longer hosts Mystery! Can you illuminate me?