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Skip this post if you haven't seen the original Morse

posted 5 years ago by GlenEllyn (21144)
11 replies | jump to latest

If you've seen the original Inspector Morse you already know that Morse never wins at love and romance. When watching this prequel series, I find myself ignoring hints of a romantic relationship between Morse and any woman because I already know it leads nowhere, in the long-term anyway. I think it's a waste of time to even think about it. I do tend to wonder if the writers would ever deviate from the original story that he remains single throughout his life. Okay, probably not.

But I'd like to think that maybe once, just once, he'd find love (besides Susan from the Dead on Time episode of Morse) and find it reciprocated with reasonable hope that they could have a future together. Even if it ends in disaster, I'd like to see just one situation where he finally gets it right.

Note: I've never read any of the Colin Dexter books so my view is based solely on the TV version of Morse.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Interesting.

[–] GlenEllyn (21144) 4 years ago

I was disappointed when Morse reconnected with Susan and it ended sadly, but also when there seemed to be a potential relationship with Adele Cecil in "Death is Now My Neighbor."

I realize that many folks don't like the Morse character because he is gruff, dismissive, and rather abusive to Sergeant Lewis at times, but I still would have liked to see him find a somewhat successful relationship with a woman at some point.

But then again, I can also see him as content with his life as a singleton. I don't think he had the emotional strength to make a relationship work. He appeared to be too wrapped up in his personal interests of opera, crosswords, etc. Probably due to his childhood dysfunction, I imagine.

[–] Quasimodo (16388) 4 years ago

I have seen the original ' Inspector Morse ' and have it on DVD. I have to say I was scratching my head while watching ' Endeavour ' as the young Morse beds, apparently quite mutually satisfactorily, one after another of a string of very attractive young women. Young Morse is obviously quite the stud so how did he end up as the unhappy middle aged bachelor who was so inept and such a failure in his attempts to find romance with women ? It's a mystery.

[–] GlenEllyn (21144) 4 years ago

I have all the Morse episodes on DVD, too. You're right - Morse was much more sexually active in the Endeavour prequels. I sometimes wonder if, in the original Morse, he was more interested in his police work (like Jack Frost in A Touch of Frost, who was really married to his job) than in maintaining a successful relationship. As in, too wrapped up in his own world to make an effort to have a relationship work. It was only later in his life that he seemed to wish more for a partner. But I also thought he was a bit dismissive in that no one measured up to his intellect and interests. But it makes for an interesting character quirk, I guess.

[–] Quasimodo (16388) 4 years ago

Morse is fascinating as a psychological case because there is so much depth to his character. My take on the original Morse was that he was negatively affected by his mother's death when he was 12. Not to say that he was close to his mother because there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that. Then to make matters worse his stepmother took an active dislike to him. So Morse had an emotionally stunted and messed up childhood.

Morse, beside being an awful snob, was also very old fashioned and pompous. He had failed a few times to see that a woman was the culprit simply because he believed that women were the finer sex and wouldn't be capable of such behaviour. Or the time he was deeply shocked when his niece died of a drug overdose. He just couldn't comprehend it.

The way I understood his relationship with women is that Susan was his first and only love and when she threw him over that was the end of that. He dropped out of Oxford and except for his work and music dropped out of life. Then when he later changed his mind he was too set in his ways and too much of an old stick to be good with or psychologically attractive to women as a romantic prospect.

[–] Karl Aksel (1453) 2 years ago

This is one aspect of the series I feel could be a lot more... absent. It's like the writers forget that they are writing a prequel for a well-established persona, linking him up with women left, right and centre... and then they remember, and beat a hasty retreat. What exactly happened to end things with Monica? Or Joan? Or Claudine? It was all done with as little fanfare as possible. Morse is single again - blink and you'd have missed it.

[–] GlenEllyn (21144) 5 months ago

I'd find it a little easier to deal with if they let Morse be married to his job, and probably never met a woman who really clicked with him, and who would actually put up with his job and his idiosyncrasies.

[–] Destinata (2676) 5 months ago

The thing that stick in my craw is that supposedly "Miss Thursday" is the great love of his life. Now watch the real Morse and see how blithely he agrees with Supt. Strange when he runs down Mrs. Strange.

He couldn't feel that way. Not the hopeless romantic -- and there is still that in Inspector Morse -- of Endeavour. He loved her. He wouldn't dismiss her. It's as if they didn't watch the original Morse. And yes, I know that Thursday was in the original, and the writer of this series wrote a screenplay or two for the original.

Still, it wasn't in his character.

[–] GlenEllyn (21144) 5 months ago

I agree. I just couldn't fathom Joan being the love of his life. A lifelong friend, perhaps, but not the love of his life. Also, I'm not so sure Fred would have approved.

[–] Destinata (2676) 5 months ago

It seemed a little contrived, didn't it? That, and his reticence about telling her he loved her. He could hop in the sack with everyone from quite literally the girl next door to someone exotic, but for some unaccountable reason Joan stopped him in his tracks.

"You mean the world..." he starts, but can't finish.

Speaking of contrived, how about Mrs. Thursday, Win, suddenly becoming the most spiteful thing on two legs, then deciding all she wanted was an apology. Or spitting, "I hate you!" then Emily Latella-like basically saying, "Nevermind!" Those were the moments so badly written that my husband and I would say, "Why? Because it's in the script." 🙄

[–] GlenEllyn (21144) 5 months ago

I never did quite understand Win's spitefulness. She really went off the deep end and it didn't make sense. She and Fred appeared to have a very strong and loving marriage until then. I can understand that she was upset over the money Fred lost, but still... The only reason I can think of is fear for their financial security in their later years. Her anger went on far too long, though.

"Why? Because it's in the script" has been said too many times in my household. 🤭 My dad pulled it out plenty of times, too.