Sidekick no longer

“Inspector Morse” is doubly dead: Creator Colin Dexter killed him off in “The Remorseful Day” (novel 1999, TV adaptation 2000), and the real-world death in 2002 of John Thaw, who played him in 33 100-minute episodes over 14 years, first seen here on public television, sealed the deal. In the parlance of showbiz ballyhoo, Thaw was Morse; he inhabited and defined him. Thaw played other characters during that time, of course, but no one else ever played Morse -- irascible, cultured, lonely, alcoholic and a poor steward of his own health (he dies not in an action but from complications of diabetes) -- or likely ever will. (I am conveniently leaving out the radio adaptation, which starred John Shrapnel.)

While movie franchises blithely switch from one actor to another -- all those James Bonds, all those Batmans -- television actors tend to become their characters permanently, and when one dies, or even just leaves a show, his character is usually retired, like a football player’s number. (Goodbye, Col. Blake; hello, Col. Potter.) Because they live in our house, sometimes over many years, and grow and age and change alongside us, they are like family, the made-up people of TV, and their cancellation so like death that we actually mourn the loss.

But Morse was not the only constant in Dexter’s fictionalized Oxford, and that world lives again in “Inspector Lewis,” airing Sunday night under the aegis of PBS’ “Mystery!” (where “Inspector Morse” was formerly long in residence). This spinoff finds Kevin Whately, who played Morse’s right arm, sounding board, target of abuse, reluctant drinking partner and down-to-earth, common-sensical better half, in a new adventure, with a sidekick of his own, and if it is not up to the level of the best “Morse,” it’s a solid and welcome effort, quite in the spirit of the original. Morse himself is posthumously present, even involved in the investigation, via a cryptic note scribbled in an old file, and there are references to him throughout: a half-done crossword puzzle, stained by his pint glass; a Jaguar (his make of car); a music scholarship bearing his name. Classical music still plays on the soundtrack, Oxford is back handsomely as itself, and Clare Holman has returned, as well, as pathologist Dr. Hobson.

Home in Oxford after two years working in the British Virgin Islands, Lewis is no longer a sergeant but a detective inspector, like his old boss. And he has been made more Morse-like, in other ways -- a little cynical, a little weathered, a little lost -- by the death of his wife in a hit-and-run accident, though he remains substantially cheerier and more sociable than Morse ever was. (Morseheads will note the ease with which he offers his first name when asked; Morse avoided revealing his until close to the end of the series.) And he is now the senior partner, paired provisionally with a young sergeant (played by Laurence Fox), a tall, composed, classically stylish, casually erudite, dry-witted former theology student -- a kind of inverted replay of the Morse-Lewis relationship, and yet another example of the highly functional mismatch almost universally characteristic of fictional detective partnerships.

Like Morse, Lewis does not get everything right, right away, though he is a terrier and fetches back the truth eventually. The plot, which is set against a background of sleep research, higher mathematics, a stately home and a motor car company, is full of red herrings and false trails -- in classic detective-lit fashion, pretty much every new character seems a likely suspect. As in many British mysteries (certainly as in “Inspector Morse”) there is an undercurrent of sadness, amplified here as the bodies pile up and more lives go to ruin. There are some overly thorough parallels to “Hamlet,” which are made to carry a little too much freight, but this a rare outburst of obvious cleverness in a highly watchable mystery whose main interest lies anyway in the progress of its main character. “Inspector Lewis” was a hit earlier this year in England, and subsequent episodes are planned.

And so life goes on.

*

‘Mystery! Inspector Lewis’

Where: KCET

When: 9 to 11 p.m. Sunday

Rating: TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children)