History Series / FoylesWar

* ShellShockedVeteran: Milner in early episodes, and occasionally [[spoiler: Andrew]]. While he's naturally more stoic about things, Foyle was also a veteran of the First World War, and occasionally finds himself recalling things he'd probably sooner forget.

** this could be regarded as a ShoutOut to Private Godfrey of ''Series/DadsArmy'' who refused active service as a CO, but served as a stretcher bearer (a very dangerous job) and received a decoration for bravery, which is much respected by his fellow platoon members

* AssholeVictim: Gordon Drake. Not even his own wife feels sorry about his death and she was happy to hear he finally got his just desserts. Also Harry Osborne of whom his boss immediately has second thoughts about hiring to work for him after he realizes how sadistic he is after discovering one of his other employees dead and Harry was to blame for it.

* AxCrazy: The culprit in "Bleak Midwinter" [[spoiler:murders and causes the deaths of the people that might implicate him in a safe breaking scheme to avoid the attention of the police including his girlfriend, Milner's wife and, unwittingly, his partner in crime; the deaths are what bring the police towards him and in a last crazy attempt to get away, he tries to blow himself up alongside Foyle and a hostage with nitroglycerin that his girlfriend stole, not knowing that [[AntiClimax she had to denaturalize the compound to be able to move it safely]].]] TruthInTelevision regarding the [[spoiler:nitroglycerin]], considering that a compound so unstable should not be shaken as vigorously as the culprit did, a fact which [[spoiler:tipped off Foyle regarding its safety.]]

* CutHimselfShaving (with LampshadeHanging)

* NeverMessWithGranny: While never actually beating anyone up himself, whenever someone says something particularly immoral you know that Foyle is about to open a can of verbal whupass on that poor idiot.
** Supported in the episode "Fifty Ships", when Foyle took out a looting firefighter with one well-placed haymaker.
** Also supported by how protective he is of Sam -- on one occasion he chewed out his successor for not showing due respect, for not teaching his subordinate to show due respect, and for [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking upsetting Sam.]]
** Plus, y'know, the fact that he's a [[RetiredBadass veteran of the Great War,]] who was promoted through the ranks because there was no one else left alive to lead.

* SinsOfTheFather: In "The Hide", James Devereaux, the scion from a prominent family, faces conviction and execution for treason for being an EagleSquadron member. [[spoiler:Foyle uncovers that Devereaux, as a child, secretly witnessed his father beat his first wife (James' mother) to death, and the authorities swept the killing under the rug as an accident. So his joining the British Free Corps was an act of rebellion, and being executed for treason was his way to disgrace his family to get back at his father. Faced with these facts, his father does the honorable thing for the first time in his life and confesses everything and is arrested, so that his son's actions become mitigating circumstances and gains a new trial.]]

* LaserGuidedKarma: Foyle's suspect in a murder case turns out to be innocent. The supposed victim, his girlfriend, had realised that he was gay and run off, calling him "sick"... right into a lethal fall down a stairwell.

* MildlyMilitary: A point of contention in "Enemy Fire" between Dr. Jaimeson and the ''very'' military Group-Captain Smythe. Smythe takes exception to the lax discipline among the recovering pilots in the burn injuries hospital and complains that they aren't wearing official hospital uniforms. Jaimeson's reply is that he had the uniforms ''destroyed'' because men with severe burns to their hands can't do up the buttons; the injuries they've suffered are so horrific that keeping their spirits up is essential to recovery, not to mention they've more than earned the consideration.

* NamesTheSame: InUniverse. Dr. Novak attempts suicide because of "what Worth said." It was not the just-murdered Dr. Worth with whom Novak was angry, though. [[spoiler:It was a [=BBC=] journalist named Worth, reporting on the horror of the concentration camps, including the one where Novak's family was sent.]]

** Subverted: Foyle calls a man locally known as a WWI hero out on getting a magistrate to give his son undeserved conscientious-objector status, and the man tells him how he knew his son was just scared to fight, was disgusted, and in fact went to the magistrate to tell him not to believe him, but was unsuccessful and now considers himself to "have no son". In the end it turns out as Foyle had suspected; that the man did the opposite and bribed the judge to rule for his son because he refused to let his son go through the same hell that he had.

** A notable one is the American businessman who Foyle has to let go because he's important to the war effort; Foyle tells him that his fate has only been postponed, because one day the war will be over. The final episode of the series ends with Foyle embarking on a ship bound for post-war America. When he returns in "The Eternity Ring", it's made clear that Karma, in the person of Christopher Foyle, has caught up to the bastard... to the extent that the [=FBI=] want a word. [=MI5=] threaten their own pseudo-Karmic retribution -- Foyle can work for them, or he can be put on the boat back to America.

* ArmorPiercingResponse: In "War Games", Reginald Walker offers a half-hearted apology for shouting at his wife, when she dared to object to him [[ReleaseTheHounds setting the dogs]] on [[WouldHurtAChild a group of children]]. Her response is calm, collected, and carved from ice:

* AdultFear: Foyle doesn't prevent Andrew from joining the [=RAF=] with its incredibly high casualty rate, but at one point he tells him quite matter-of-factly that he'd be quite happy if Andrew never got into a plane again.

* UnCanceled: Though cancelled abruptly after the fifth series, negotiations led to a renewal for another three.

When ITV decided to stop making the series and make two final episodes, one each for 1944 and 1945, there were many complaints; series creator Creator/AnthonyHorowitz certainly wasn't happy. In the event, it was not only given a concluding season, ending on V-E Day, but subsequently renewed for three more seasons set in the war's aftermath: in the final two seasons, Foyle, having retired from the police force, is recruited by [=MI5=] and becomes involved in the early days of the Cold War.

* AFatherToHisMen: In "Elise," Ian Woodhead complains that Hilda Pierce was emotionally invested in her female agents, which is confirmed during the flashbacks. [[spoiler:As we discover, Woodhead was responsible for getting several of those agents killed.]]

* CatchPhrase:

* NotSoDifferent: Said word-for-word by two different characters, once as the complete, classic, German-accented "See, ve are not so different, you and I" (although the Nazi in question is not a villain and means it in the sense that he was an ordinary soldier who went where he was told).

* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: In-universe in "High Castle" when Foyle has to go to Nuremburg to investigate the murder of a factory owner awaiting trial. He asks the prosecutor if it's really necessary for them to go on trying industrialists and other civilians who weren't involved in Nazi high command. To show him why it is, the prosecutor takes him to the industrialist's old factory--Monowitz, a "sub-camp" of Auschwitz that was built because so many prisoners were dying on the forced marches from there to the work sites. He spares no detail in describing the hellish conditions that the enslaved prisoners were forced into for the sake of civilian industrialists, who knew exactly what was being done to their "workforce".

* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: In-universe in "High Castle" when Foyle has to go to Nuremburg to investigate the murder of a factory owner awaiting trial. He asks the prosecutor if it's really necessary for them to go on trying industrialists and other civilians who weren't involved in Nazi high command. To show him, the prosecutor takes him to the industrialist's old factory--Monowitz, a "sub-camp" of Auschwitz that was built because so many prisoners were dying on the forced marches from there to the work sites. He spares no detail in describing the hellish conditions that the enslaved prisoners were forced into for the sake of civilian industrialists.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: "Enemy Fire" examines the changing attitudes towards combat stress, fatigue, and trauma through a ShellShockedVeteran from UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and Andrew Foyle's development into one as a pilot. The veteran was actually [[spoiler:being blackmailed by someone who knew he'd shot himself in the foot because he couldn't take the horror anymore]]. In contrast, Andrew's commander [[spoiler:promotes Andrew out of the flying service into a instructor position, understanding and empathetic to the fact that he's gone past what he can mentally endure]].

* TyrantTakesTheHelm: More than a few of Foyle's superiors travel this path.

* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Averted in "Fifty Ships." English actor Henry Goodman plays American character Howard Paige and does a pretty decent job with the voice without going too overboard.