Trivia / Inspector Morse

• Actor-Inspired Heroism: Despite having previously said he didn't want to play cops again after The Sweeney, John Thaw agreed to take the title role in this series on condition that Morse's Chivalrous Pervert tendencies in the books were dropped for the TV series. As a result, they were also considerably played down in the subsequent novels.
• Actor-Inspired Element: Like Morse, John Thaw was a fan of Classical Music.
• The Cast Showoff: The storyline in "Deceived by Flight", where Lewis goes under cover in a Cricket team, was devised by Colin Dexter to let Kevin Whately show off his cricket skills. Lewis takes a wicket and a catch in the match but gets deliberately run out by a Jerkass team-mate after only scoring one run.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: John Thaw's favourite episodes were "The Dead of Jericho", "Masonic Mysteries" and "Promised Land".
• Creator-Preferred Adaptation: Colin Dexter has admitted he prefers the TV series portrayal of the young Geordie Sergeant Lewis to the elderly Welshman he used in the earlier novels.
• The Danza: A retroactive example. Chief Superintendant Strange is never given a first name on this series, but Endeavour gives him the first name of James, after the actor who played him in this series, James Grout.
• Dawson Casting: There's a lot of it in "Last Seen Wearing" — in particular, then 23 year-old Elizabeth Hurley as a 16 year-old student.
• Playing Against Type:
  • When the series first started airing, people were surprised that how different Morse was from John Thaw's previous portrayal of another police officer, Inspector Jack Regan in The Sweeney.
  • Patrick Troughton as a peeping tom in "The Dead of Jericho".
  • Geoffrey Palmer as the very nasty Matthew Copley-Barnes, Master of Beaufort College in "The Infernal Serpent".
  • Richard Briers as the scheming, immoral Sir Clixby Bream, Master of Lonsdale College in "Death is Now My Neighbour".
  • Perry Fenwick, who is best known for playing Memetic Loser Billy Mitchell in EastEnders, has a brief appearance playing a Loan Shark who beats up one of the suspects in "Last Bus to Woodstock".
• Referenced by...: Viz has a parody called "John Thor as Inspector Norse" in which Morse acts like a Viking god while trying to solve murders.
• Tourist Bump: Oxford has benefitted a lot from the fact that the show and its spin-offs were filmed there, with much use of Scenery Porn. As a result, a mini-tourist industry in Oxford (a city already on the itineraries of many visitors to Britain thanks to the university) geared towards Morse fans has developed, including themed walks which go to various locations (and pubs) featured in the show. The Randolph Hotel even renamed its bar after Morse — a fitting tribute to a character who loved a pint or two.
• What Could Have Been: Malcolm Bradbury, who wrote the episode "The Wench is Dead", envisaged a spin-off series centring around Constable Kershaw, who only appeared in that episode as a temporary replacement for Sergeant Lewis. Then Bradbury died, and the eventual spin-off focussed on the newly-promoted Inspector Lewis, with a different character as his sidekick.
• Written-In Infirmity: Morse has a slight limp in some episodes. This is a result of a childhood incident where John Thaw broke his foot while running to catch a school bus. The Endeavour episode "Home" includes a nod to this: Morse is shot in the leg, and is told that the wound will result in a limp developing in later life.

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