Special Feature: Inspector Lewis, the Academic Body Count, Season 1

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 Season (series, if you're British) One.  Here's the Intro post, if you missed it.

In the first season of Lewis, the university remains fairly safe.  Of eight murder victims, only one is a faculty member, and one is an undergrad.  No staff, administrators, or grad students are murdered.  However, the community of Oxford is not necessarily safe from the university; taking into account the past murder in “Whom the Gods Would Destroy,” we have a grand total of five undergraduate murderers (out of eight murderers total; the past murder in “Whom the Gods…” was a team effort).  Both “Whom the Gods Would Destroy” and “Expiation” feature professors who assist Lewis and Hathaway in their investigations, so the university isn’t a complete drain on the surrounding community, but (as you may know if you’ve ever lived in a university town), it’s wise to be wary of the undergrads. 

If you haven’t seen the season, here’s the Amazon link.  It’s included with Prime, if you have it.

Episode-by-episode details below the cut.  Contains spoilers.

Episode 1.1, “Whom the Gods Would Destroy”

Originally Aired: June 22, 2008

This episode features a complicated revenge plot involving murders in two time periods.  The main murders, which Lewis and Hathaway are investigating in the episode’s present tense, involve a group of four men who were friends in their undergraduate days.  Three of these men have been murdered by the end of the episode.  Only one, a professor and would-be Vice Chancellor, is an academic.  Neither of the mastermind-murderers is affiliated with the university, but they commit the murders because when the four men were students, they murdered a young woman who was the best friend of one and mother of the other present-day murderer (I said it was complicated).  So in this episode, being a faculty member or administrator is only dangerous if you were a criminal as an undergrad.  It’s pretty hard to feel bad for the victims or to blame the university.

Totals in present: 3 victims.  1 faculty member, 2 non-affiliated.  2 murderers (sort of), both non-affiliated.  1 faculty member (Professor of Classics) who helps solve the crime.

Totals in past:  1 victim, non-affiliated.  4 murderers, all undergrads.

Conclusions: If you can manage to go through undergrad without committing murder for your own personal satisfaction, you will not be in danger from complicated revenge plots by your victim’s family and friends.  For most of us, the university is safe.

Episode 1.2, “Old School Ties”

Originally Aired: June 29, 2008

A complex plot is pretty normal for Lewis, and this episode has one too.  There are two victims: a high-achieving, beautiful undergraduate woman and an ex-con author visiting Oxford for a speaking engagement.  The ex-con’s crime involved (in part) embezzling money from Oxford colleges, and a prominent official at one college committed suicide because of the financial loss.  The suicide victim’s son, an athlete, marksman, and current undergraduate, decides to get revenge by murdering the ex-con.  He’s friends with the first victim (the undergrad woman), who was supposed to help him with the murder.  When she backs out, he kills her, and then completes his revenge with the help of his girlfriend (also an undergrad).  Once again, we have both a revenge plot and an undergraduate male criminal.

Totals: 2 victims.  1 undergrad, 1 non-affiliated.  1 murderer plus one accomplice, both undergrads.  Several undergrads and one faculty member, an English professor who runs a cheating scam about to exposed by the murdered undergrad, are persons of interest or red herrings.

Conclusions: It doesn’t look good for undergrads.  In fact, this episode suggests that we should all, from fellow undergrads to administrators, avoid the super-ambitious types only out to make connections.  The university isn’t as safe as we thought.

Episode 1.3, “Expiation”

Originally Aired: July 6, 2008

This is a weird episode and one of my least favorites, to be honest.  Maybe that’s because it doesn’t spend much time at the university.  There’s a super-manipulative, dying professor who trades information about the case for information about a man he once wronged, and that’s really the only university connection.  It turns out that the first murder victim, Rachel Mallory, murdered her little brother when she was a child.  At eighteen, she was released with a new identity (this seems to be common practice in Britain; it’s a plot point in another episode of Lewis and comes up at least once on Midsomer Murders).  The second victim, Jane Templeton, is assigned to watch Rachel after her release.  When Rachel’s husband learns about her past, he kills both his wife and her “minder.”

Totals: 2 victims and 1 murderer.  None is university-affiliated.  1 faculty member provides crucial information, and 1 former student helps out.

Conclusions: The university is safer again.  But the dying professor’s story suggests it’s a good idea to be nice to your students, as the man he wants Lewis and Hathaway to find is a student he (the professor) had expelled—or “sent down” in Oxford parlance—for no good reason.