Lewis

Lewis returned to ITV1 without John Thaw but with the blessing of Colin Dexter.

ITV1 had entrusted the first screenplay to Stephen Churchett who had wrecked one of the Miss Marple adaptations he wrote about a year before.

Other than a couple of cutesy references to Inspector Morse, Churchett managed a stylish screenplay up to the standard of the Inspector Morse series.

Lewis, now a DI, returns from the Caribbean to work for a new chief superintendent called Innocent who learned her charm and police skills in the same academy as the retired Chief Superintendent Strange.

Laurence Fox is the new sidekick, James Hathaway.

Mrs Lewis has died and the kids have left home so Lewis can spend as much time in the new series chasing love interests as did Morse.

Clare Holman as the pathologist Laura Hobson survives from the original Morse series. As does a crossword clue from Morse himself.

Episode one, screened on ITV1 in the UK in January 2006, was seen by an average of 10.7 million viewers.