MovieChat Forums > Inspector Morse (1988) Discussion > DS Lewis - The Oxford Village Idiot

DS Lewis - The Oxford Village Idiot

posted 8 years ago by Cherubim1
12 replies | jump to latest

What a buffoon this Lewis character is. He can barely make the connection to anything and is constantly relegated to the bumboy policeman role.

As a DI he is no better. Just worse.

Truly pitiful.

[–] louiseculmer 8 years ago

he's no worse than Morse, who also is always getting things wrong, fastening on the wrong suspect etc. And lewis at least doesn't keep falling in love with his suspects.

[–] Cherubim1 8 years ago

Morse understands Oxford and its people. Lewis chooses or perhaps is too ignorant to understand the culture and prefers to use the Geordie hang em till they choke method of interrogation.

Admittedly Morse does make mistakes and is a womanizer/boozer but then again nobody is perfect.

I just think Lewis is too slow in his actions and lacks any spatial thinking ability, He really does come across as a buffoon in these episodes.

[–] lawson14 8 years ago

I really don't think that he's the village idiot. He comes from a different background, let us note, from the same neck of the woods as the Beatles. He has a normal life with a wife and kids and is very realistic about life. He is bemused about Morse's love of opera and crossword puzzles. And he is shown studying for exams to become an inspector. And there some cases which he actually solves.

[–] bhoover247 8 years ago

That's what makes these shows so good. Lewis has to be the opposite of Morse, we couldn't stomach more than one Morse. Occasionally Lewis with his simple way of approaching both the world and the crime, stumbles into the truth when Morse overlooks it.

[–] lawson14 8 years ago

I agree. In an interview, Kevin Whately said as much. His character had to the opposite of Morse.

[–] norman1961 8 years ago

"same neck of the woods as The Beatles"
Er,he's from Gateshead in the North East,they're from Liverpool in the North West

[–] lilactime2014 8 years ago

In the same way that Friends and the Big Bang Theory are set in a near enough location to each other....

'tler

[–] missfrost-214-92332 8 years ago

You were being nice, so I hate to have to criticise you, but Lewis is from the North East and the Beatles were from Liverpool, in the North West. I'm from Manchester, which is only about 35 miles away from Liverpool, but we still wouldn't call that "the same neck of the woods."

[–] Tjanssen411 8 years ago

more that he's the 'Watson' to Morse' 'Holmes'

for storytelling purposes you Need someone with a contrasting mindset to your hero so that said Hero can use them as a sounding board, or they can feed the Hero information... Both types of conversation work as expositional Dialog,

But if they were both able to recognize the significance of a given clue immediately, without the aid of these conversations, then you lose the expositional conversations that share said information with the audience.

If he could say, "I just found Clue X and it proves suspect Y is Guilty" they arrest X, story's over.

But if he finds the clue, explains it to Morse, Morse can cite the connection as he sees it, and they can go to discuss the Clue's importance to the Suspect, the suspect's reaction helps confirm their suspicions.

[–] joes119-1 8 years ago

Human nature understands there are lots of people in this world smarter than us. But we find it revolting and unfathomable when we encounter folks dumber than us.

Trying to make his cement-headedness acceptable as set-in-Oxford screen fare was never going to happen.

[–] missfrost-214-92332 8 years ago

I don't think you know what bumboy means.

[–] Jes' Sayin' (6544) 2 years ago

Lewis stands for the viewers, asking the stupid questions we would ask if we were there. So just look at what you have called all of us!