Inspector Lewis: Series 2

Inspector Lewis is a Fine Successor to Inspector Morse in the Murder Capital of Europe, Oxford, England
The Inspector Morse mysteries were perhaps the finest television mysteries ever developed. I loved Morse and enjoyed every episode and ultimately purchased them all in the complete DVD edition. The Inspector Lewis mysteries are equally excellent television. They are a fine successor to the Morse series and deserving of five stars and my firm recommendation. I would like to buy a complete set of these, too, and I may, but from Amazon UK. Then I'll have to buy an all-region DVD player.

So why did I rate this DVD set only two stars? As the other reviewer discovered and wrote about, PBS is cutting about ten minutes from each episode to leave time for the extra introduction and to keep the entire length at 86 minutes, leaving time for PBS commercials. Each Inspector Lewis episode in the British DVD sets (Region 2) is 93 minutes. Each episode in the PBS version is 86 minutes which includes the extra introduction by PBS host Alan Cumming. The PBS Series 2 run time is listed as 602...

How to get around the problem
1. Get a region-free upconverting DVD player from Amazon.com (USA). A 5-star-reviewed Pioneer DV610av is a bit more than $100. My discontinued Pioneer DV383 (not upconverting), also from Amazon.com, has been totally trouble-free. It has done well with UK, German, and US DVD's in both NTSC and PAL encoding. In fact, I plan to stay with it, because it delivers such superb image quality.

2. Buy ALL Lewis series released so far (1, 2, 3) UNCUT from Amazon.co.uk for about what ONE butchered series costs from the jerks in Bahstn. That's right, you get series 3 already. 6 - 10 day air shipment for about $5 is included in the price. The savings on the three series will almost pay for the region-free DVD player.
UPDATE: Shipment arrived just now, five business days after ordering.

3. Repeat for lots of other stuff butchered in Bahstn. Often it will be, as with the Lewis series, not only uncut and unaccompanied by gratuitous PBS twaddle, but MUCH cheaper. Your next...

PBS has cut down the running time by 10 minutes for each episode!
We fans in North America have been duped by PBS video! It was bad enough that we endure a lazy DVD production that is 2 years behind what's available in the UK and simply applies the "Masterpiece Mystery" broadcast version of the show onto video. That is to say, one must endure annoying PBS ads; a superficial intro by host Alan Cumming; an unacceptable preview that spoils some surprises for anyone hoping to enjoy the episode freshly; and a cruel removal of Barrington Pheloung's end credit theme music for the show, which I've therefore never heard.

HOWEVER, each of these episodes is missing about 10 minutes of story that has been edited out so that PBS can air the show in its 90 minute time slot. I found this out when I realized that my "Inspector Morse" DVDs released by Carleton Video always ran about 1 hour and 34 minutes, and asked PBS if "Lewis" should really be longer than the DVDs' 1 hour and 24 minutes. They had the courtesy to admit the truth. Why it's necessary for...

Click to Editorial Reviews