"Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong, putteth the law out of office." -- Francis Bacon, Essayes (1625)
The double portrait that is considered for auction is a wink to Piero della Francesca's diptych "The Double Portrait of the Dukes of Urbino": in its style of painting, in its composition, and in the clothing of the depicted.
According to Laura, Morse consulted her once on donating his body to science. In the final episode of Inspector Morse, when discussing with his lawyer, did stipulate his body was to be donated upon his death.
Professor Joanna Pinnock is played by Sorcha Cusack of Father Brown fame, where she is cast as Mrs. McCarthy, the secretary for St. Mary's Church in Kembleford.
Amanda Ryan appeared as Kay Brooks in The Daughters of Cain (1996); Ronald Pickup as Ian Matthews in Who Killed Harry Field? (1991); and Sorcha Cusack as Morse's half-sister Joyce in Cherubim & Seraphim (1992). Paul Anderson briefly appeared in The Great and the Good (2008) as murder victim Frank Sporetti.