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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 9, No. 29 |
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FAREWELL, INSPECTOR LYNLEY  Sharon Small and Nathaniel Parker appear together for what may be the last time as Sgt. Barbara Havers and Inspector Thomas Lynley in PBS' "The Inspector Lynley Mysteries" this month on the "Masterpiece Mystery!" series. Further production has been halted by the BBC. |
Can we afford to lose
another good detective?
of TheColumnists.com
In most parts of the U.S., PBS' "The Inspector Lynley Mysteries" series will come to an abrupt end Sunday night. thanks to a decision by England's BBC network to halt production of the show rather than go on for an eighth season.
Those who tune in for the final show surely will be disappointed to discover there's no sense of closure there. It's a good episode, all right, but you'll find no notion that there won't be more mysteries to solve for Inspector Thomas Lynley (Nathaniel Parker) and his sidekick Sgt. Barbara Havers (Sharon Small).
That's because neither the writers nor the actors knew they were making the final episode. The decision to end the series was made after completion of the seventh season's two final mystery cases. Even if the writers had known, it might have been hard for them to fashion a wrapup of the series since author Elizabeth George is already busy on her 16th novel in the series.
Rebecca Eaton, the American producer of "Masterpiece Mystery!" for PBS, did not want the series to end because it has done well in the U.S., where George's novels are usually best-sellers. But decision-makers at the BBC decided the series had run its course.
For a time, the Lynley character also seemed to run off the tracks because of the death of his wife. In the latest Lynley novel, "Careless in Red," Lynley has left his job and is wandering the coast of England, disheveled and unshaven, when he stumbles into a dead body by the seashore and becomes involved in solving what turns out to be a murder case. At the end of the book, he seems ready to resume his life as a police detective.
The death of Lynley's wife also has been covered in the TV series, though it already has put Lynley back to work as a detective.
Perhaps the BBC thought that was a good place to quit--with Lynley recovered from the most traumatic event of his life and back on the job.
However, I think it's more likely the decision was based on financial considerations. As any series grows older, salaries need to be renegotiated upwards and production costs mount, narrowing the profit margin, especially in the show isn't performing as well in the ratings. Still, ratings aren't as big an issue with British networks as they are with American networks And PBS, where the Lynley series has played exclusively in the U.S., has no commercials, so advertisers aren't there to complain about ratings.
Production of "Agatha Christie's Poirot" also was halted in the early 1990s even though the series remained extremely popular. Public demand, especially in Japan and America, finally resulted in its return. It was revived with David Suchet returning to the role of Poirot and has been running ever since on American television, first on the A&E cable network. It returns to PBS next season on "Masterpiece Mystery!"
The reasoning behind the initial shutdown of "Poirot" was that enough episodes had been produced to permit the production company to reap significant profits by just selling repeat rights to foreign networks. New production had become very expensive, but infusion of more money from foreign rights seekers finally made it profitable enough for production to resume.
Perhaps that's what will have to happen to bring "The Inspector Lynley Mysteries" back into production. Both Parker and Small have been quoted as willing to keep going, even by doing occasional made-for-TV movies about Lynley and Havers, if a series wasn't economically feasible.
I'm disappointed, of course, because Lynley was one of the few new TV detectives that seemed to bridge the two eras of the modern mystery--the Golden Age sleuths like Lord Peter Wimsey and his brethren, who were "gentlemen" from England's upper class--and the modern police detectives like Inspector Morse. Lynley is a titled gentleman, the eighth Earl of Asherton, but Havers, his partner, is a working class girl who respects her boss, but resents the upper classes. It made for a very nice mix of the traditional and the contemporary detective mysteries.
Of course, there's always the chance that somebody may decide to adapt some of Elizabeth George's more recent Inspector Lynley mysteries for the big screen, but so far television has been the only medium seriously interested in detective stories that appeal to an older audience.
"Careless in Red," for instance, is a very engrossing novel with lots of character development. It could make a superb feature film. It even has several younger characters who might be cast with popular young actors that would appeal to the kids who make up such a large part of the modern movie audience.
But, in the meantime, do watch the final 90-minute Lynley episode Sunday night on PBS. It's a good one and it will leave you hungry for more.
©2008 by Ron Miller. The photo is courtesy of PBS and the BBC. This column first posted Aug. 11, 2008.
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Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
writes about television mysteries for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
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