An intellectual mystery
Like masters of disguise in wartime, the Brits have been perfecting their non-regionally specific accents and taking over American television for years now -- Hugh Laurie on “House,” Damian Lewis on “Life.” So it’s nice to see a couple of British guys not only owning their heritage, but reveling in it. Of course, it would have to be on “Masterpiece Mystery!” but still, in the increasingly global entertainment industry, it’s good to know exactly where you stand.
“Masterpiece Theatre” may have become “Masterpiece” with hipper graphics and far fewer trumpets. But everyone still loves a good British whodunit, and “Inspector Lewis,” which debuts on Sunday as part of this season’s “Men of Mystery!,” is positively steeped in tradition, of its native land and of its genre. (Also, it’s introduced by Alan Cumming, he of the devilish grin and hitched-high eyebrows, which makes it worth watching.)
From the time-and-tribulations-worn title character (played by Kevin Whately) to the picturesque setting -- in this case, the town of Oxford, “Inspector Lewis” is a paean to another time, somewhere between “Colombo” and “CSI,” when detectives relied on clues rather than lab work.
Obligingly littered with corpses, secret societies, nefarious conspiracies and, occasionally, a few students on bikes, the hallowed streets of Oxford offer an American audience not only with a built-in irony -- murder! At Oxford! -- but also a lovely mini-travelogue, so convenient now that the dollar seems to be permanently in the toilet.
The creation of novelist Colin Dexter, Robbie Lewis made his debut a few years ago, as the sardonic working-class sidekick of the more highfalutin’ Oxford Detective Chief Inspector Morse (John Thaw), who had his own successful run on “Mystery!”
Now with his own show, Lewis is struggling to make his own name -- Morse remains something of a legend -- and prove himself to his new boss (amusingly named Detective Chief Superintendent Jean Innocent), Lewis has his own sidekick now, a wonderfully dry and intellectual detective named Hathaway.
Played by Laurence Fox, a long blond Englishman who has made a bit of a career playing the jilted, and unsuitable, boyfriend in movies including “Becoming Jane” and the recent remake of “A Room With a View,” Hathaway is a Cambridge man. This not only gives his relationship with Lewis a built-in public versus state school tension -- “you’re inverted snobbery is showing,” one posh murder suspect tells Lewis, who is indeed given to the occasional these-stuffy-old-buggers rant -- but also lends him insight into how things work among the educated elite.
Together, they are an engaging enough team, although this being a British series, the focus remains on the plot rather than the endless mining of the main character’s deep-seated complexities and emotional fault lines.
Not that Lewis isn’t complex or fractured. He is, having recently lost a beloved wife to a hit and run which gives him the requisite damaged credibility. But he doesn’t like to talk about it much, and, frankly, neither do the writers. Instead, we are offered three two-hour tales of murder and intrigue, each with a colorful assortment of characters and puzzle pieces that seem plucked from a modern-day version of Clue (or, to use the archaic spelling, Clew).
Taking on issues as diverse as the cult of Dionysus, the perils of the Internet, and suburban swinging, “Inspector Lewis” nicely bridges the ancient with the modern, proving, as every good solid mystery story does, that, centuries and technology notwithstanding, human nature has not changed all that much.
Not even in Oxford.
--
--
‘Masterpiece Mystery! Inspector Lewis-Series 1’
Where: KCET
When: 9 p.m. Sundays, June 22-July 6
Rating: TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children)
