henry-plantagenet-04 Review of Twilight of the Gods

Inspector Morse: Twilight of the Gods (1993) Season 7, Episode 3

Excellent, humorous episode with a scene-stealing performance by John Gielgud

[9/10 · 25 March 2017]

I'm not typically such a fan of the Morse series. I do enjoy them, but its not something I could watch several episodes of in succession. This is by far my favorite that I have seen. It is much more upbeat than the others, and times very funny. Oxford as filmed here is sunny and beautiful not dark and grim as in the other episodes I've seen. The mystery is as convoluted as ever, a large part of it dealing with the attempted murder of Gwladys Probert (Sheila Gish), which is ultimately just an enormous red herring. But that hardly matters here. It is precisely the daft distractions that make this episode so worthwhile. Morse (John Thaw) and Sergeant Lewis (Kevin Whately) are both in fine sparring form, but they also have a very honest, compassionate moment at the end, which lends some depth to the episode. Sir John Gielgud is absolutely hilarious in his role as the aging college chancellor, gleefully contemptuous of everyone from Lithuanian billionaire Andrew Baydon (Robert Hardy) to American colleague Lyman Stansky (Don Fellows). A lot of his best witticisms are given away by the other reviews here, but I still think they're worth watching for his marvelous delivery. The story interweaves several themes from opera to freelance journalism to the Baydon family's trouble past, and it is difficult to tell where the motive for murder really comes from or even who the intended target was. (Like in "The Infernal Serpent," the other episode I really liked though for very different reasons, the two murders are committed by two different parties.) And though I watched this for the characters more than the mystery, the solution did make sense at the end, though I felt the inclusion of Victor Ignotas (John Bluthal) was very rushed. That is unless he appeared earlier in the story and I didn't notice him. The Morse episodes I've seen are usually fairly intimate affairs, but here the cast was gigantic and I felt they were introducing characters right up until the last twenty minutes. I also really enjoyed Morse's speculations on art and life, and the conclusion he comes to, though I wish we could have actually seen a conversation between him and Probert. I think that could have really added to that aspect. All in all, a very enjoyable episode from a typically somber series.