Fandom Overview: Lewis
With a great big thank you to lamardeuse and tehomet for their thoughtful beta, canon insights, additions and suggestions. Any mistakes are new and have been introduced by me.
Spoilers throughout this overview for both Inspector Morse and Lewis.
Lewis Introduction
Lewis is a spin-off of British TV series Inspector Morse, which was based on the novels by Colin Dexter, and starred John Thaw as Detective Inspector (later Chief Inspector) Morse and Kevin Whately as Detective Sergeant Robert (Robbie) Lewis. Set in Oxford, England, Morse originally aired from 1987 to 2000.
John Thaw as Inspector Endeavour Morse (left) and a young Kevin Whately as Detective Sergeant Robbie Lewis.
Each Inspector Morse episode followed the investigation of a crime set in Oxford, and hinged on the relationship between the irascible bachelor Morse and long-suffering family man Sergeant Lewis.
Set several years after Morse, Lewis has Robbie Lewis promoted to Detective Inspector. Working with him is the much younger Detective Sergeant James Hathaway, played by Laurence Fox.
DS Hathaway (Laurence Fox) and DI Lewis (Kevin Whately).
Overview
Following the death of Morse in the final episode of Inspector Morse, and then some time later the between-series death of his beloved wife Val in an unsolved hit-and-run, a grief-stricken Robbie Lewis takes a two-year sabbatical in the British Virgin Islands.
Lewis begins with his return to Oxford. He’s picked up at the airport by DS Hathaway, leading to this gorgeous piece of dialogue: Lewis: Are you for me?
Hathaway has initially been ordered simply to give Lewis a lift to the station, but on the way they detour to Val’s grave, and from there they get pulled into a developing case.
From the beginning there is subtle chemistry between them, and by the end of the pilot Lewis has been retained as a Detective Inspector by Chief Superintendent Innocent, and he and Hathaway have become a team.
This is Hathaway waiting to see how Lewis responds to his request to be his “bagman” (a colloquial term for Sergeant). Don’t worry, Lewis says yes.
Each episode of Lewis follows Lewis and Hathaway investigating an Oxford based crime, frequently dealing with the colleges, students and faculty of Oxford, and often containing clues that involve art, literature, philosophy, religion, maths, poetry or something equally pointy-headed.
Mostly it’s just them hanging out together:
Once in a while they fight and then have to rescue each other:
But generally they get on:
Oh, and Hathaway sometimes plays the guitar:
Each series contains four two-hour episodes, and the sixth series has just screened in the UK. A seventh series is filming right now (summer 2012) and will almost certainly be the last. And finally a new show is set in this universe, called Endeavour, and based on the life of the young Morse.
Characters
Robbie Lewis
Lewis is genuinely heart-broken about his wife Val’s death at the beginning of Lewis, and this is sustained believably as the series progresses. Through Hathaway’s efforts he does eventually find some peace and resolution, but the long-term nature of grief is something that I think the series does in the background really well. The rest of Lewis’s family consists of two grown up children; his daughter Lyn, who has a partner and child (by series six), and his unnamed son who is in Australia.
He is a kind and very compassionate man, but lonely. He is very intelligent, but has no pretensions to higher learning. He’s a Geordie lad, (Geordie being a slang term for a native of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a city in the North of England,) and he is permanently - deliberately - out of place amongst the dons of Oxford. He’s capable of being impatient, short-tempered and unimpressed by the pretensions of others. He understands most people and is clear eyed about what drives them. He allows people to have dignity, no matter how sordid their circumstances are.
He’s had several flirtations with women involved in his cases over the years, and one on-screen kiss with an ex-colleague.
I think it’s fair to say after six series that Hathaway is both his Sergeant and the closest friend he has. His face crumples beautifully when he talks to his daughter. He has a flirtatious, slow-developing almost romance with pathologist Dr Laura Hobson, and a sparkling rapport with Chief Superintendent Jean Innocent.
He is a rather lovely man, and watching him solve cases with Hathaway, and work with Hobson and Innocent, is pure pleasure.
James Hathaway
Although the beating heart of the series is the complex structure of relationships between Hathaway, Lewis, Hobson and Innocent, the writers choose to keep them almost entirely in the background of the cases. This may be why the fandom is flourishing; almost everything has to be inferred and built on the in-between glimpses they give us, and fans are completely awesome at that.
The sparse details canon gives us about Hathaway are intriguing. He was in the seminary, training to be a priest, and was either kicked out or left. In the pilot he tells a joking story about an elaborately decorated pie giving away his frivolous nature, and for all we know it could be the truth. He still seems to have a deep faith, but it has been tested at least twice that we know of; both times over the difficulty he had reconciling his faith with the overtures or struggles of a friend.
His sexuality is a little ambiguous. He’s had flirtations and brief but passionate relationships with women, but alongside this has complete ease and familiarity with Oxford’s gay community, and deliberately refuses to define his sexuality when asked.
He’s a deep thinking intellectual, well read and informed about many things. He quotes poetry and literature with ease, but is completely unaffected. He’s dexterous and physical; an ex Cambridge rower, Lewis’s downfall at squash, and a talented classical guitarist.
Until the age of twelve he spent his childhood on Crevecoeur, a country estate where his father was caretaker. Other than this we don’t know anything about his family, even if his parents are still alive. There is a hint that as a child on the estate he may have been abused, or more likely been friends with other children who were, but nothing is known for sure.
In many ways he is completely at ease in the world of Oxford, but the episode where we see glimpses of his past also reveals he will never be accepted by its social leaders. He is uncomfortable in the police force, yet he apparently rejected MI5’s attempt to recruit him. If he wanted it he would be embraced by academia, but instead he chooses to work with Lewis.
At various points during the series he and Lewis frustrate each other, but they always resolve their problems. Most often they are simply in tune. He shares with Lewis a deep compassion for others, and a willingness to take everyone seriously. One of Hathaway’s most lovely characteristics is his habit of listening and looking intently at people, focusing on them to the exclusion of all else.
He has no sense of normal physical boundaries when it comes to Lewis.
He wears very tight shirts.
He’s lonely.
This is the moment just after Lewis defends him to Innocent in the pilot episode.
What can I say about Hathaway? The man is an enigma, a mystery where Lewis is an open book. They are a team, and over the course of the series their relationship deepens. Between them there is trust, respect, and something that is indisputably a form of love.
Laura Hobson
Played by the luminous Clare Holman, Doctor Laura Hobson is the pathologist who Lewis and Hathaway work with on almost every case. She also featured in Inspector Morse, so she already knows Lewis at the beginning of the series. She is a musician (she plays the clarinet), mostly single, and not averse to a little detecting herself. While she is usually involved only as the pathologist or as Lewis’s friend, several episodes have drawn her in much more deeply, and one revolved entirely around her past.
Hobson is sharp and witty, clearly fond of both Lewis and Hathaway, and like them she is very possibly lonely. The episode that focuses on her is one of my favourites. It delves deeply into her past (even a hint would spoil it), but in true Lewis style it ultimately asks more questions about Hobson than it answers.
Hobson and Lewis have a reliable flirtation. They share a tendency to banter at crime scenes that’s one of the true charms of the show. It’s led to at least one date and an inferred (tentative) relationship, but there is an ongoing lack of progress on Lewis’s part. Lewis is clearly extremely fond of her, and they have believable on-screen chemistry. Hathaway sometimes appears jealous of their relationship, sometimes protective of Lewis, and sometimes exasperated at his DI’s failure to take solid action.
One of the most poignant on-screen Hobson moments is not with Lewis at all, but with Hathaway. I don’t want to give it away - it’s enough to say that Hathaway is right there with her after a gut-wrenchingly appalling experience. It permanently deepens their relationship but is never referred to openly again.
Jean Innocent
Chief Superintendent Jean Innocent, played by the fabulous Rebecca Front, begins the series as an antagonist to Lewis, but as it goes on she becomes a trusted and sympathetic ally. Married to a man who is delightfully referred to in canon as Mister Innocent, she is perfectly capably of bending Lewis to her will.
Playing the role of the commanding TV police chief, she was often used early on to simply create an obstacle for Lewis, but as the series developed that trope has gone by the wayside. She’s intelligent, wise, funny and in charge. She seemingly knows both Lewis and Hathaway at times better than they know themselves, and when not being serious has a knowing, playful side that is a great foil for them.
Co-stars
Many well-known British actors have played roles in Lewis - although an actor’s fame is often a giveaway of their importance to the case.
The other co-star is Oxford. Most of the series is actually filmed there, and both the scenery and themes that draw from the university environment are regulars.
The Dreaming Spires
The Fandom
Lewis has a small and lovely fandom with lots of great writing, a smaller amount of delightful fan art, and an exquisitely small number of perfectly formed vids.
As you may be able to tell from my summary, a decent chunk of the fan fiction explores the relationship between Lewis and Hathaway, from friendship to romance and everything in between. There is evidence in canon (if you’re looking for it) to support multiple interpretations of their relationship.
Fandom also supplies lots of gorgeous character studies of both Lewis and Hathaway, past, present and future; a sparser number of Innocent and Hobson; some stories exploring the Lewis/Hobson relationship; some that explore Lewis and Hathaway in relationships with original characters and other canon characters; some that deal with Lewis’s son and daughter; and some exploring Lewis’s memories of and relationship with his wife Val, or with Morse.
I may have given the impression that all of fandom is obsessed with Hathaway - but it’s not true (although it's not entirely untrue). It’s definitely true that Laurence Fox’s father is James Fox, who starred in Performance with Mick Jagger in 1968. My personal obsession with the Fox family began when I saw it. I’m only human.
James Fox and Mick Jagger in Performance (very relevant).
There is also the fantastically cheeky Laurence Fox himself on twitter (Lozzafox - I’d prefer not to link so you’ll have to find him - it’s easy). All I can say is take a look through his pics. He has a habit of referring to Kevin Whately as Donald (there’s a story behind that) and knowing that Donald=Kevin may help make sense of some of his tweets. I recommend looking up the definition of ‘Henman’. He and Rebecca Front also have the odd completely charming twitter conversation. The impression is of a cast who genuinely enjoy working together.
Fandom works run the gamut from light and fluffy to dark and serious. The fandom is small enough that it’s still just about possible to read/squish, or at least be aware of, all the stories, but large enough that you can lose yourself for days and weeks of happy discoveries. You can dive straight in to the fic as I did after watching only the first episode, but the series is pretty wonderful and completely worth watching in full. Many of the episodes end with Lewis and Hathaway going off together; some with them sitting by the river, having a pint in the sunset. Not a bad way to end.
I’ll be reccing some of my favourite stories this month, the ones that got into my brain and became personal canon. But if you don’t share my taste please go digging around in the fandom: it will deliver.
Fandom communities:
inspector_lewis
lewis_challenge
lewis-hathaway
There is also a large collection of stories on the AO3.
And baskervwatson created a fandom master list that includes stories, vids, icons and articles.
Happy reading!
ETA: Thanks to the_other_sandy for the information that Colin Dexter (writer of the original novels) has regular cameos in the show. So that you can look out for him (and not at all as a gratuitous excuse to include these images) here he is with Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox as part of a campaign for the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Sadly they don't seem to have photographed Rebecca Front or Clare Holman.
