Inspector George Gently - Series 8 - Gently and the New Age

My review of the previous episode: Gently Liberated.

[Spoilers ahead]

As a mystery, Inspector George Gently is hard to assign a genre. It's more violent than cozies like Foyle's War, but hasn't abandoned its whodunnit roots for the high-octane pulp of Luther. Its violence is anchored by the moral code of its protagonist. Noir? Gritty mystery? In any case, both its morality and its darkness come together for one last showdown in Gently and the New Age.  

It's a nice thing to see a show go out on top. Many drag it out, watering down the substance till they've become a self-parody. Inspector George Gently doesn't do that, giving us a final episode true to the integrity of the series and the character, though probably not the story we expected. It might not be the best episode the show has ever produced, but it's a strong ending and that's quite an achievement for a show that's been running for over a decade.

Inspector George Gently - Series 8 - Gently Liberated

My review of the previous episode, Son of a Gun.

I haven't watched any George Gently in a long time. As reentry episodes go, this is a good one, if just because it has everything that has defined the show for the last ten years. There's George - stolid, reliable, a lion for justice. Bacchus - smarmy, unreliable, a jackal who wants to be a lion. There's corruption in high places and '60s fashion and mistreatment of minorities. We've seen all of this before, but the knowledge that this is the show's final season gives it an edge that lifts it above a somewhat basic plot.

Inspector George Gently - Series 7 - Son of a Gun

My review of last week's episode: Gently Among Friends

Perhaps the greatest irony of Inspector George Gently is that its tragedy always stems from its basic conservatism. To quote C.S. Lewis: "A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line." This show has always remembered what a straight line looked like. I remember that Gently Upside Down, an episode back in series 4, ends with a young woman, Hazel, berating a failed authority figure. He was meant "to take care of us, not use us." She acts like that should be the natural state of the world.

George Gently has spanned most of the 1960s and Hazel was hardly the only iconoclast. But these children railing against their fathers are never righteous heroes. They're always broken, and even if they wish to transcend "the system," they still display a tangible hunger for the world before it was fallen. They hate their fathers, but want to impress them. They are not men but stunted children desiring attention.

Inspector George Gently - Series 7 - Gently Among Friends

My review of last week's episode: Breathe In the Air

Two weeks ago my dad bought half a dozen Lyle Lovett CDs from a sales rack. For the last few days, my listening library has consisted mostly of Lovett and Johnny Cash. Pondering over the previous episode of George Gently while listening to That's Right (You're Not From Texas) made me think of odd things. What if our heroes were transported abroad (a la Inspector Morse, in two episodes), to investigate crime in the Lone Star State?

Imagine my amusement when I found Gently and Bacchus dropped into a flashy American club with Johnny Cash playing in the background (Will the Circle Be Unbroken and Ring of Fire, to be specific). They're looking into the death of Scott Parker, a visionary who wanted to be "Mr. Newcastle" (wait, I thought this was Durham?). It looks like suicide at first: he threw himself off a bridge onto a pile of trash - but it's soon seen that he was dead before he fell. It's looking like murder.

Inspector George Gently - Series 7 - Breathe In the Air

My review of last week's episode: Gently With the Women

It's not really a proper George Gently series until George battles evil in high places (last week, it was only mid-places). Now he must cope not only (as per usual) with corruption in the ranks, but the vast bulk of corporate crime, as well as his bickering subordinates.

After a brisk morning run, George dashes off to investigate the suspicious suicide of Valerie Cullen. All seems straightforward, but George isn't convinced. He starts to delve into her past. She's a doctor, suffered from depression, and was estranged from her smarmy husband - also a doctor. Eventually, it becomes apparent that Valerie had been investigating health violations at an old factory - a fact which many people resented.