"Inspector Morse" Dead on Time (1992)

Director:

John Madden

Writers:

Colin Dexter (characters)
Daniel Boyle (written by)

TV Series:

"Inspector Morse" (1987)

Original Air Date:

26 February 1992 (Season 6, Episode 1)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery

Plot:

Henry Fallon, who is wheelchair bound and is suffering from a neurological disorder, apparently commits...

Plot Keywords:

Detective | Oxford | Police | Murder | Sergeant

Cast

John Thaw	...	Chief Inspector Morse
Kevin Whately	...	Detective Sergeant Lewis
Brendan O'Hea	...	Telecom Engineer
David Haig	...	Peter Rhodes
Susan Jane Tanner	...	Nurse Rogers (as Susan-Jane Tanner)
James Walker	...	Henry Fallon
Martyn Waites	...	Duty Constable
Thomas Craig	...	Desk Sergeant
Roger Frost	...	Photographer
James Grant	...	McGregor
Richard Pasco	...	William Bryce-Morgan
Joanna David	...	Susan Fallon
Lesley Vickerage	...	WPC
Christopher Owen	...	Solicitor
Richard Hampton	...	Coroner

Filming Locations:

Deer Park, Magdalen College, High Street, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK

Company:

Zenith Entertainment

Quotes:

[talking about his mechanical bucking bronco]
William Bryce-Morgan: It doesn't eat, it doesn't poo.

Actually one of the more poignant Morse episodes!

Dead On Time is beautiful, and very sad towards the end. One thing that stood out was the beautiful music by Schubert playing over the first five minutes or so. It perfectly matched what was on screen, and somehow made the scene very poignant. The plot is fairly complex, with the apparent suicide of an elderly don, and we learn that the victim's wife, played by a sympathetic Joanna David, and Morse some 30 years previously were engaged to be married. The plot then reveals a car crash, resulting in the death of the victim's daughter and grandson, but this unfolds after the son-in-law is implicated for the murder of his father-in-law. I thought the ending was extremely sad, with Susan killing herself, and Morse refuses to accept that he is wrong, as he thinks the family doctor did it, in a conspiracy between him and the victim to implicate the son-in-law, but Lewis learns that Susan did it to fulfil her husband's promise. The writers quite sensibly made Morse more sensitive here, but I did find him very scary in the interview room scene, that is all thanks to the outstanding performance of John Thaw. Kevin Whately matches him perfectly as his loyal sergeant Lewis, even more so when he can't bring himself to tell Morse the truth, and James Grout, Joanna David, Adrian Dunbar and Samantha Bond provide able support. All in all, an episode that is most likely to tug at your heart-strings. 10/10 Bethany Cox.