Two things the British do well on television are historical period pieces and mysteries. With Foyle’s War, history meets mystery and the results are astounding. It’s like curling up in a blanket on the couch with hot chocolate while the rain hits the window outside. The patient attentions to detail, the actors, the sets, the stories are all top shelf quality. Everything feels like World War II Britain. Each series is another year of the war and major milestones of the war — Dunkirk, the blitz, the arrival of the Americans, the end of hostilities — all feature prominently in the series.
Series 5 opens with “Plan of Attack” set in April, 1944. It’s the last months of the war and despite the optimism, there is still the tension of rationing and uncertainty about the future prominent in everyone’s life. Detective Chief Superintendent Foyle (Michael Kitchen) has been “persuaded” to retire and with the assistance of his former driver, Samantha “Sam” Stewart (Honeysuckle Weeks), is hard at work writing his memoirs. The death of his replacement, DCS Meredith (Nicholas Day), who was talked out of retirement to take Foyle’s place, has Foyle back in his old office. Meredith’s death is related to the arrest of a local racketeer by Detective Sergeant Milner (Anthony Howell). This turns out to be a minor crime however when an RAF map-maker working in a top secret office is found dead. Initially termed a suicide, it turns out he was murdered. Foyle solves both murders before deciding to stay on at the station until the war is over.
“Broken Souls” is next, set in October 1944. Doctor Worth (Oliver Kieran-Jones) is found murdered at a nearby military mental health hospital. Foyle is already busy searching for a missing East End boy who was evacuated to Hastings from London possibly to have returned to the area. Foyle delegates the search to Sam so he can focus on the murder. Arriving at the hospital, he saves a friend, Josef Novak (Nicholas Woodeson) from suicide after hearing of the discovery of the concentration camp where his wife and daughter were taken. Further muddying the water is the discovery of the body of a German POW, Johann (Jonathon Forbes). His body is found after he escaped from the POW camp. Johann worked as a POW on a local farm until Fred Dawson (Joseph Mawle) comes back from being a POW himself and accuses his wife Rose (Natasha Little) of having an affair with Johann. Confused? Yes, me too, but Foyle had no problems sorting out the tangled skein and putting away the culprits in the end.
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