Young gay Will commits suicide, but he was pushed into it. Chief suspects are a bunch of high-minded God-botherers in high places in Oxford - so they get bumped off in gruesome circumstances. Two hours of boring rubbish as we struggle to find out whether Hathaway is gay and who is the obvious villain. We have to swallow that Will and lover would go for couples counselling from a a Christian Outreach programme that says Gays are diseased (yes, really), and that Will was only interested in love, which turns out to be a love based on superficial surface looks rather than soul or self-sacrifice. Yes, he pays a fortune for his male lover to have a sex change (obviously because of the bad old Christians) and then almost immediately rejects the resultant gender bender!! Obviously an agenda being worked out here, as you can see the plot twist coming from ten miles away! The trouble with two hour long episodes is that you cannot get too much information up front, so detectives fail to ask the right questions and we often cut away from the obvious action leading to a boring boring wait for the denouement. 'Lewis' is a prime culprit, and one is left to look at endless cuts to Oxford scenery and trying to spot Colin Dexter in the background (three times in this episode, I think). Whereas 'New Tricks' gets its answers in fifty minutes by threatening to take recalcitrants who will not talk down to the police station, we have to put with ever so glum dull Geordie (now a pale replica of Morse) padding snail-like to the answer while his boss Rebecca Front pops in to give us a recap and see what her latest wardrobe purchase might be! Oh, dear, give it a rest and bring back the feisty women of 'Murder in Surburbia.'
Review of Life Born of Fire
