Arise thread! We just began watching this and it’s AMAZING. We’re in season three and it’s becoming one of my all-time favorite shows. The chemistry between Foyle and Sam is my favorite thing.
I had intended to sample a lot of detective shows, but now I pretty much just binge Foyle’s War. I wish I could look as cool while skeptically pursing my lips and sucking on the inside of my cheek! Realizing I could be deploying DCS Foyle moves on my children: “Why don’t you, er… tell me why you’re lying to me?”
OMG yes. I love when he goes right for it like that. “So why did you kill him?”
I’m about 5 episodes in and really enjoying this, thank you to all who recommended it in the various threads on here. I was watching it in the same room as my young daughter, I figured given the tone of the show there would not be any swearing / rumpy-pumpy / etc. But I did need to switch to headphones due to the amount of racism, in episode 2 especially - the one with a meeting of Nazi sympathisers, I didn’t want her overhearing any of that. Great acting throughout, and the profound decency of Foyle himself is a particular comfort in these times.
The show is pretty gentle. But I think the creators tried to capture at least some of the nastiness of war - or at least, how they played out on the south coast, far from the front lines. The exploration of what that does to people and families ‘back home’ is frequently heart wrenching.
Is it okay to criticize the show in this thread? I don’t want to disrupt the love-fest with my negative energy.
Here’s a few of the reasons why I’m not enjoying it so far.
It disrupts my notion of Churchill inspiring the British people and them bearing through the war with grit and grace. Instead, we learn in this show (so far) that even during the war there were people looting bombed out houses, taking bribes to help people avoid the draft, talking disdainfully about refugees and killing children to avoid embarrassment. A lot of British people were monsters, I’m learning.
But that’s not the main reason I’m not enjoying. My main complaint is that whoever does the audio for the show needs to get fired. Often there’s a slight echo in some of the dialog, so they didn’t do a good job recording with their microphones. And secondly and more importantly, whoever does the music is completely divorced from what is going on. I can just picture it now, they gave this person lots of notes. “Music for exciting spitfire scene”. “Music for thrilling car chasing a truck”. “Music for sentimental scene between husband and wife”. “Music for a sad scene between father and son”. Unfortunately, they gave these notes to Mr. Bean, who fumbled and accidentally destroyed them all, and instead produced new notes for the music producer so that no one would notice his error. All of his notes said “Music for a picnic and a spot of tea”.
Anyway, my issues with the music aside, I can imagine this show being really good if they can just completely change all their audio and sack whoever is in charge during the first two seasons. Especially the music composer.
Were and are! There’s a ton of romanticism about the Blitz and how it brought the country together. A cursory google search shows actually crime was at a high point during that time (as but one example). I suspect the murders like Foyle investigates were rather rarer than the show implies! But there was plenty of crime and nastiness.
I never noticed the audio issues.
I like most of the music, but some of it is quite generic after a while!
I’m with you on the music. I admittedly didn’t notice the voice quality, but I believe ya.
Overall, I don’t see the show as a deconstruction of British morality. I’m having trouble explaining why, but I think it has to do with how it portrays Foyle’s justice as a kind, mending force. That goes perfectly with my imagination of London patiently defended and repaired during bombing raids, and so on. Britain being strong because it takes care of itself.
A lot of the episodes involve Foyle failing to mend the injustices he finds, though.
He remarks several times that he’s not comfortable with what Britain is sacrificing in terms of its values to win that war. And no matter the outcome of WW2, it’s quite clear that Foyle’s own personal war for justice and decency is very much lost by the time he sort-of retires from the police force.
I actually thought that Foyle’s War was a lot better than the usual English murder mystery in terms of “slowly depopulating the English countryside”–i.e. how do any of these small towns have any population left given that every week someone is being knocked off? I think it does a very good job of exploring another aspect of the home front that is (as mentioned above) so often glorified. And I think @Fifth_Fret’s spoiler is spot on.
I didn’t have any trouble with the music or the sounds when I watched it several years ago. OTOH I remember thinking that poor Sam, while delightful, wasn’t the greatest of actors, but nobody else seems to have an issue with that.
She’s not, but she’s fine in that role!
Also, you’re viewing her alongside Michael Kitchen, which is always going to cast quite a shade.
Indeed, I have always wondered why the police never figure out that Father Brown is killing all of these people. Who else could it be, he has to be the only one left?
Always good to get another perspective!
And I’m with you on some of the music, at least. God, that heroic music they use EVERY TIME a spitfire is flying… But I’ve already mentioned I don’t like Andrew and his plotlines (although there are is an exception or two). There was one strangely cheery piece I remember being used in a season 3 or 4 episode that was really weird too, although I think it was only in that one episode. On the other hand, I like the main theme a lot.
I haven’t noticed echoing on the dialogue, but I might not be sensitive enough to pick it up.
As far as the message about the British people and their reaction to the blitz, etc, I think what the show often does is highlight the unsavory opportunists and reactionaries, but also shows more ambiently how the common person makes many sacrifices and respects the reasons for rationing, blackouts, etc. And, as others have pointed out, Foyle often ends up having to choose how to prosecute justice fairly, and sometimes that means letting the mostly innocent folks who break under the pressure of the times go free as well as sticking it to the privileged military or aristocratic powers that think the war puts them above the law.
Anyway, I think you see a lot of “grit and grace,” but the show wants to say it wasn’t universal. I’m sure that’s overstated because it’s a crime show, but I’m sure it’s also true to some extent.
As an American with only a surface level understanding of what the British went through in the war, I have learned a lot about what it was like and what some of the consequences were. I assumed at first the show was set during this period because it was just a historical period that hadn’t had a murder mystery show. But I really think it was a smart choice, because there are all kinds of unique situations that spring from being on the homefront during a war.
Pure hypothetical, not a real spoiler.
It’s a shame Andrew wasn’t the murder in Episode 6, as is expected, of course. It would have been more interesting an outcome to have Foyle’s own son be guilty, but to argue that he’s a good pilot and that Britain needs him, and Foyle would overlook his son’s actions. He’d tell himself it was because he was a pilot, but he would wonder if he was doing it because he was his son.
Just watched that episode, and I was surprised Foyle didn’t recuse himself as soon as Andrew was a suspect - I guess the explanation would be that they were very understaffed? But I do think it would have been out of character for him to overlook it if his son were the murderer, given his various stances against corruption. It’s implied he was going to arrest Rex after his mission regardless of the war effort.
Btw the only issue I have with the audio quality is the opposite to yours - sometimes speech sounds too clear! I doubt I’ll explain this very well, but when you have an exterior shot of a car being driven, it feels weird to hear the character’s dialogue as clearly as an interior car shot - like there should be a different ambience to it? It always sounds like dialogue they’ve added later on during editing, to quickly explain a plot point. And while I’m complaining, faces are often way too tightly framed for my taste. But still, I’m otherwise enjoying the show immensely.
We’re finishing the penultimate season, and holy crap, it just gets better.
It’s amazing how this pivoted into a spy show. It’s just soooooo good.
I’m sad we have one season left, but then we’ll watch some of Michael Kitchen’s other works.
I couldn’t stand the episode War Games. Not only did they waste Emily Blunt like they always waste their guest stars, the episode was just completely filled with convenient plot points where things just happen to work out. Just terrible, terrible, terrible. I just couldn’t stomach watching the show after that one.
Good to know!
I have kind of flagged on the show after finishing Season 5 (UPDATE: I mean 6) (which has a pretty big shift in the show’s situation–not sure where exactly it’s going to go). It’s been a lot of binging and I think I’m interested in watching some other stuff for awhile, then I’ll come back to it. I don’t think most of the S4-5 shows were quite as good as the early ones, but it’s still great.