A NOBLE LEWIS

So, after it finished "forever" a year or so back, "LEWIS" is back on our TV screens and redefining all of our definitions of what "forever" actually means.

To be honest with you, and despite it lurking in a nice, cellophane-wrapped DVD box set, I've never actually got around to watching that "last" Lewis yet anyway.

There was a moment at around the time just after the first transmission, when we pulled up a chair and prepared ourselves, but we found that there had been a signalling error and the recording device had only picked up about three minutes of the second hour, which seemed to signify something significant, but also meant that we couldn't actually watch it, and we really didn't want to just see part one and then be left in limbo, and then we never got around to looking for it after that.

To be honest, we're not all that keen on "endings" generally in our house, which is why the final "Poirot" also remains unwatched, even though we've both read "Curtain" anyway. We're prepared to read about an old and frail Poirot, but it's far more difficult to bring yourself to watch him in that state, I find.

I'm not convinced that our recording device likes endings either, to be honest, because, coincidentally, the machine also failed to pick up that episode on transmission, too, and we're far too uninvolved to bother ourselves with something like "ITV Player" - especially within the allotted timespan in which it was available - so that DVD also sits there on the shelf, remaining resolutely unwatched, too.

Somehow I do find that giving a character - especially a detective - a final send off does alter my perception of the previous stories, making me think "Well, that's all very well, but it's all rather pointless when you consider the final episode…" as I watch them, which is a bit of a shame. Like with Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, I think that I prefer to think of them being out there somewhere, still dealing with the bad guys, no matter quite how preposterous that might seem.

When it comes to the return of "LEWIS" though, I was very pleased to read about Kevin Whately saying that he wouldn't want the number of "LEWIS" films to exceed the number of "INSPECTOR MORSE" films because it feels as if there's something quite noble and honourable about that, and it was a spirit that I had always hoped might be invoked.

This is true to the spirit of Brian Johnston who, rather admirably I've always thought, bowed out as the host of "Down Your Way" when his total number f editions matched, but did not exceed, the 733 editions presented by his predecessor Franklin Engelmann up until his sudden death in 1972. Brian Johnston always suggested that it wouldn't have been right to present more editions than him, and stuck to his guns about it because he was a gentleman and always more interested in the spirit of fair play than personal aggrandisement, which is something to be admired I believe.

The number of "LEWIS" films now numbers thirty, and the number of "INSPECTOR MORSE" films numbered thirty-three, so I suspect that we are definitely approaching the end of its run, given that Kevin Whately is now older than John Thaw was when he died, even though he had already seen off the character a couple of years earlier.

John Thaw was one of those actors who it's actually hard to believe was only sixty when he died, because he always seemed far older than he actually was. When you work it out, he was only about thirty-three when he first played Jack Regan, and was a mere six years older than his co-star at the time, Dennis Waterman.

As to Whether or not ITV will agree with him about this decision remains to be seen, given that it has already finished forever once, but I'd like to think that they will, and I like to think that they'll give the character a reasonably happy ending, simply because it seems the right thing to do...