Whilst Greeks Bearing Gifts is well worth watching, it is not as good as Who Killed Harry Field? and Second Time Around, but I do still think that Fat Chance is the weakest episode of the 5th series. Here, the script is very intelligent, and the scenery beautiful. The plot once again is very intriguing, around a murdered chef and Morse and Lewis facing a language barrier. The performances are top notch, I continue to praise John Thaw and Kevin Whately, and the supporting performances from James Hazeldine, Jan Harvey, James Faulkner and Martin Jarvis are excellent if careful not to overshadow the two leads. Lovely music, including excerpts from the fantastic Introduction and Allegro for Strings by Elgar.(this is the music on the documentary video about ships that Morse is watching)The ending is also very good and tense, if not the best climax in a Morse episode ever. Overall, very well done. 9/10 Bethany Cox.
8 Reviews
Good episode with a shocking ending.
Sleepin_Dragon10 June 2018
Greeks bearing Gifts is a very strong episode of Morse, a fabulous scrupt, some very fine performances, and one of the most shocking, dramatic climaxes I can recall.
I love the Greek vibe throughout, the musical, characters, the wonderful and charismatic elderly couple. The story is wonderfully clever, it's very much about longing and desperation. Martin Jarvis is a fine actor and given some great performances over the years, but I always class this one as his best.
Very good all the way through until that ending, which conjures up all sorts of feelings, panic, outrage, and if it doesn't have you on the edge of your seat I'd be surprised.
Wonderful production values as always, glorious music. Greeks bearing Gifts is a great episode. 9 /10
I love the Greek vibe throughout, the musical, characters, the wonderful and charismatic elderly couple. The story is wonderfully clever, it's very much about longing and desperation. Martin Jarvis is a fine actor and given some great performances over the years, but I always class this one as his best.
Very good all the way through until that ending, which conjures up all sorts of feelings, panic, outrage, and if it doesn't have you on the edge of your seat I'd be surprised.
Wonderful production values as always, glorious music. Greeks bearing Gifts is a great episode. 9 /10
Greeks Bearing Tzatziki.
rmax30482323 February 2011
Warning: Spoilers
This is a decent episode, a tale of a well-liked sous chef at a Greek restaurant found murdered in his flat for no evident reason. Morse and Lewis investigate and are led into a conflict of business and nationalism involving some working-class Macher and the snooty owner of the restaurant where the chef worked. Man, does that restaurant owner look villainous. He's Greek of course, so he's dark. He's slender, he has a beard like Satan, he doesn't want his restaurant business interrupted by the killing of his sous chef, and he never smiles. It's not long before he's twitting Morse about the theft of Greece's so-called Elgin Marbles from the Acropolis. (They now reside in the British Museum.) There is a snare about the reconstruction of a type of Greek warship called the trireme. The man who oversaw its building is the world's leading bore on Greek oared ships. His wife is a television personality named Friday -- "If it's Saturday, it must be Friday." They're the happiest couple you can imagine. That's always a bad sign.
There's another murder and a kidnapping and the end is melodramatic. Come to think of it, it's the first episode I can remember that ends in an act of violence. Not a shoot out, heaven forbid, but a violent death nonetheless. Morse doesn't speak Greek, and aside from some muttering about Icarus and a spontaneous quote from Virgil, he's not overbearing. And in my opinion he doesn't abuse Lewis enough.
I like it particularly because I could follow the plot -- more or less. I'm still not sure what that overblown working-class theme-park operator was up to or why things went sour on him. But that's nothing, compared to the confusion I've experienced during some earlier episodes, the logic of which to me resembled thicket of thorns.
I don't know where the casting people found the actors for the Greek parts but they did a good job. It doesn't sound as if the lines were learned phonetically.
There's not really much humor in this episode, nor is the location exploited for its charm. There is, naturally, one of those stately homes that looks roughly the size of Samos. As the working-class promoter is rushing blindly through that house I noticed something queer about it. All the rooms are roughly the size of an ordinary living room or a bit larger. In other words, the rooms in this mansion aren't terribly big. It's just that there are about two hundred of them.
There's another murder and a kidnapping and the end is melodramatic. Come to think of it, it's the first episode I can remember that ends in an act of violence. Not a shoot out, heaven forbid, but a violent death nonetheless. Morse doesn't speak Greek, and aside from some muttering about Icarus and a spontaneous quote from Virgil, he's not overbearing. And in my opinion he doesn't abuse Lewis enough.
I like it particularly because I could follow the plot -- more or less. I'm still not sure what that overblown working-class theme-park operator was up to or why things went sour on him. But that's nothing, compared to the confusion I've experienced during some earlier episodes, the logic of which to me resembled thicket of thorns.
I don't know where the casting people found the actors for the Greek parts but they did a good job. It doesn't sound as if the lines were learned phonetically.
There's not really much humor in this episode, nor is the location exploited for its charm. There is, naturally, one of those stately homes that looks roughly the size of Samos. As the working-class promoter is rushing blindly through that house I noticed something queer about it. All the rooms are roughly the size of an ordinary living room or a bit larger. In other words, the rooms in this mansion aren't terribly big. It's just that there are about two hundred of them.
Great show but with disappointments too
deansscreen21 April 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Other reviewers have pointed out that the baby scenes near the end of the show are disturbing. I have to agree. The child was obviously scared and helpless, held by a screaming actress under very bright lights and obviously unhappy. I can't see how this sort of thing got onscreen.
I also have a dumb question (warning: spoiler). The Greek landlord says he saw Friday on the street after the murder. So who was the murderer? Friday or the man, her husband, whom she accused and who was carted off in a squad car at the end? I am either incredibly brilliant to see this conundrum or else, far more likely, simply unable to follow a script. Can anyone help?
Excellent episode
grantss14 September 2022
Other than Episode 2 - Fat Chance - Season 5 of Inspector Morse has been brilliant. The plots are still quite complex but at least they're understandable and not anticlimactic, unlike many of the other seasons.
Episode 4 - Greeks Bearing Gifts - typifies the great writing of this season. A highly intriguing plot: a murder with no apparent motive or suspects. Slowly but surely Morse and Lewis piece together suspects and clues. They literally start with nothing to go on and have to just ask questions and follow the smallest leads until something substantial pops up. It's a great example of good police work when you're facing a dearth of evidence.
A dark atmosphere and a great twist at the end round this off neatly, making this one of the best Morse episodes.
Episode 4 - Greeks Bearing Gifts - typifies the great writing of this season. A highly intriguing plot: a murder with no apparent motive or suspects. Slowly but surely Morse and Lewis piece together suspects and clues. They literally start with nothing to go on and have to just ask questions and follow the smallest leads until something substantial pops up. It's a great example of good police work when you're facing a dearth of evidence.
A dark atmosphere and a great twist at the end round this off neatly, making this one of the best Morse episodes.
A Human Need Unfulfilled
Hitchcoc26 February 2018
Mores gets involved with a Greek family that spends much of its time watching behind it. There is a murder. Someone has broken the neck of a guy named Nikko but every effort to solve the murder is met wit internal resistance. Morse, bottled up by the language barrier, enlists a young woman who is bilingual. Things seem to revolve around a professor who has gone into the business of reconstructing and sailing a trireme. But there is a dark side to him and his wife, the perfect couple. The wife is incredibly strong on television with a daily Dr. Phil type show. The closing scene is a bit pat and I must agree with a previous writer that things get really scary, and the danger could be beyond the bounds of acceptable television.
The End Scene
retrogames22 May 2010
Whilst I have never been an avid viewer of Morse, i have watched it occasionally and enjoyed them. A repeat of this particular episode has just finished and i was rather disturbed by the scene near the end involving the baby. I won't give any specific details, but the baby was obviously real and obviously in distress during the scene. I'm not easily shocked, but it did make me feel uncomfortable watching this scene, the way the camera is positioned its almost as if the director intended to catch the poor child's reaction. I'm surprised nobody else has commented, and as i say I'm not easily shocked but did find the scene very uncomfortable viewing, which encouraged me to look it up and comment.
Mistreatment of child on set
cumby-0048026 September 2021
Warning: Spoilers
I give this episode only one star because of a disturbing scene involving a young child. The plot includes a 6-month old child who has been kidnapped. A woman is holding the child hostage and is engaged in a hostile yelling match with her husband. She's holding the child in her arms and shouting right by the child's ear. It's clear the child is getting increasingly upset. The woman also jerks the child's body. We tried to rationalize (for ex., maybe the actors were miming and then we're later dubbed; but clearly that was not the case).
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