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 - 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.

Inspector George Gently - Series 7 - Gently With the Women

The new series starts off on a somber note as a woman is violently attacked in the shadows beneath Durham Cathedral. It is pitch dark in the alleys by the river, but the glowing face of the enormous edifice looms against the night sky, passive, silent, immovable, uncaring, unhearing.

Meanwhile, George Gently is in the ring, attempting to keep up with a younger colleague. Martin Shaw, at 70, still looks like he can throw a mean punch, but George's age is catching up with him. He is suddenly KO’d, letting a punch fly right past his guard, and wakes up in the doctor’s office. He's none too happy about the fuss, but she is insistent that this may be more than a mere fluke.

P.D. James - The Last Victorian

If I'm still writing at the age of 90, I will die happy. I hope P.D. James did, anyway.

One thing is for certain: no one could have predicted her life would have ended here, as a world-wide respected author. At the age of 16, she left school to help support the family - her father didn't believe in higher education for women. Throughout her lifetime, she worked in a tax office, as a stage manager, as a member of a hospital board and at the Home Office in the forensic science and criminal law departments. When her husband was sent to a mental institution after World War II, she became primary breadwinner for their two daughters. 

She started to write detective novels in the 50's, and her first book Cover Her Face, was published in 1962. While it received favorable reviews, it took until 1980, with Innocent Blood (my favorite) for her career to skyrocket. After that, she seldom wavered from the adventures of her poet-detective, Adam Dalgliesh. One notable exception was The Children of Men, a fascinating religiopolitical dystopia built on the premise of an ingenious question: What if mankind stopped bearing children? In 2006, it was made into a movie, directed by Alfonso Cuarón (we'll be reviewing it this week on The Pilgrim's Podcast.) In 1991, Queen Elizabeth made James a Conservative peeress: Baroness James of Holland Park.