The Oxford University of ITV/PBS's Inspector Lewis
is a dangerous world for academics, and in this series I bring you the
lowdown on who in the academic community is most likely to kill be or be
killed. This post gives the details for the first three episodes of US Season Two. Here's the Intro post; here's the Season One breakdown.
My Miss Fisher-induced euphoria cased me to neglect my
favorite British inspector, but have no fear, I have not forgotten my
commitment to assessing the dangers of Oxford for academics and would-be academics. Season Two of Inspector Lewis is inexplicably long. At seven episodes, I believe it’s the longest
season of the series. In fact, I think
it might have been two different “series” (seasons) in Britain that were
combined into one for us Americans—so maybe not
“inexplicably” long, but long. For
that reason, I’m breaking the season in to three posts, covering episodes 1-3,
4-5, and 6-7. Onward with the first
installment!
While Season One had only 25% university victims, in Season
Two things are looking a little bleaker for academics, at least in the first
few episodes. We have, in total, seven
murder victims (plus a suicide) and four murderers. Two victims are undergrads, one is faculty,
one is a staff member, and three (count them, three! And all in one episode!)
are administrators. That means all the
victims are affiliated with Oxford University in some fashion. Two murderers are faculty members, and the
other two are unaffiliated community members, though one is the parent of an
undergrad. So, Oxford University is
definitely a dangerous place to work or study, and the town/gown issues dwarf
those in most US university towns! It’s
far from certain that you’ll die in Oxford, but you might want to invest in
some Mace or something.
If you haven’t seen the season, here’s Amazon link. It’s included with Prime, if you have it.
Episode-by-episode details below the cut. Contains spoilers.
Episode 2.1, “And the
Moonbeams Kissed the Sea”
Originally Aired: August
30, 2009
I really like this episode, in spite of the murderous English
professor. Or maybe I like it because of the murderous English
professor. The man in question is a
Romanticist, and Hathaway at one point refers to the Romantic poets—Keats,
Shelley, Byron, etc.—as “The guys in the band” and for some reason this always
cracks me up. Add to this the
Romanticist’s statement, “I teach English literature… It’s not a profession which tends to attract
violent enemies,” and this episode provides particular fun for the ex-English
professors among us. Anyway, the murder
victims, an undergraduate art student and a custodian at the Bodleian Library,
are both killed because of their knowledge of and/or involvement in a scheme to
sell some forged Shelley manuscripts.
The scheme, it turns out, is being jointly run by a mathematician and
the Romanticist, both of whom have gambling problems. The only thing I find implausible about this
is that a humanities faculty member would voluntarily collaborate with someone
from STEM (kidding, kidding, some of my best friends…, etc.).
Totals: 2
victims, 1 undergrad and 1 staff, and 2 murderers, both faculty. Two undergrads and a librarian are either
persons of interest or in some way assist the investigation.
Conclusions: Beware
Romanticists and mathematicians working together (but we knew that). If you must gamble, make sure you can pay
your debts (we knew that, too). More
specifically, avoid faculty members who want to take advantage of your
calligraphy skills, and don’t try to finance your gambling habits through book
theft.Episode 2.2, “Music to Die For”
I was supposed to see Il Trovatore today. The local movie theater screens the Live at the Met productions, and we were going to go, but we got there too late. We’re going on Wednesday instead, but I was still disappointed. I am telling you this because this episode is all about opera. It’s not about Verdi, though, but about Wagner. If you’ve seen Morse, you know that Morse (Lewis’s old boss) loved Wagner. Lewis doesn’t love it as much as Morse did, but he listens to a lot of it in this episode, which concerns the murders of an undergraduate and a professor German history. Both of these victims knew too much about a certain Oxford club owner’s past as an informant for the Stasi (the East German Secret Police). So, she kills them. Opera enters the picture because our club owner once informed on a Wagner scholar who corresponded with Morse, and the letter from an English policeman was all the evidence the Stasi needed to throw the scholar in prison, where he died. Both of the murder victims track down the identity of the informant who essentially killed the Wagner scholar. Possibly the creepiest aspect of this case is that the undergraduate victim was the murderer’s daughter’s boyfriend, and the murderer tries to convince the daughter that the victim committed suicide.
Totals: 2
victims, one faculty (history) and one undergrad. 1 murderer who is not affiliated with the
university, but is a really terrible parent of an undergraduate.
Conclusions: Scholarship
will get you killed. Seriously. Wagner Scholar dies essentially because he
corresponded about his subject. Both the
undergrad and faculty victims do archival research on the Stasi and therefore
discover that the murderer was an informant and thus get themselves
killed. If you know what’s good for you,
become a plumber or something.
Episode 2.3, “Life Born of
Fire”
Originally Aired: September
13, 2009
I’ll admit it. I’m a Lewis junkie. I’ve seen all the episodes multiple times and
indulge in periodic rewatches. Often
these days I skip this episode, because it’s always bugged me. It’s hard to put a finger on why, exactly, but I think it’s because
of its screwy treatment of gender, sexuality, and the intersections between the
two. The episode deals with a
transgender serial killer who targets administrators affiliated with Mayfield
College, which appears to be one of Oxford University’s more religious
divisions. All three victims are
involved with a group that tries to “pray the gay away” as it were, and the
killer targets them because she blames them for her lover’s (?) suicide. The twist is that the murderer had a sex
change operation so that the suicide victim could love her without hating himself
for it, but that didn’t really work out because transwomen are women and gay
men are attracted to men and not women.
It’s nine kinds of weird, and I really, really hate the way the episode links trans-ness and
murderous-ness. Also, while the trans
character lives as a woman and has definitely transitioned medically as well as
socially, there’s no sense that she transitioned because of her own gender identity. It’s just messed up, and because I know
what’s coming when I rewatch it’s hard to focus on anything else about the
episode. I suppose I should focus here
on the fact that we have three administrative victims, and the murderer wasn’t
even a faculty member.
Totals: 3 murder
victims, all administrators at the same college. 1 suicide victim who was driven to it by the
actions of the 3 murder victims. 1
murderer who isn’t affiliated with the university but may once have been a
student there (along with the suicide victim; it’s not made clear in the
episode if they were students when they encountered the anti-gay group).
Conclusions: Don’t
be a jerk. Praying the gay away doesn’t
work, and people get really, really hurt when you tell them that who they are
is wrong. 
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