Many of us were disappointed when World War II ended and Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle told his superiors he’d had enough. “Foyle’s War” was one of the best British television series of this century, its five wartime seasons in the coastal town of Hastings brimmed with fully developed characters and believable situations. And then—surprise—a three-episode Season Six emerged with Foyle’s resignation still unaccepted and the war in Europe over but the battle for the peace just beginning.
All six seasons have been packaged on a massive DVD set, “Foyle’s War: The Home Front Files” (out March 12), a must-have for fans.
The theme music perfectly sketches the title character, suggesting methodical determination and meticulous wariness. Played by the wonderfully understated Michael Kitchen, Foyle is a widower who keeps his loneliness to himself. His son Andrew leaves Oxford University to join the RAF in episode one, May 1940, with the British shore freshly strung with barbed wire and Hastings braced for the expected invasion. The Nazis never come but there is no rest for the wicked.
A moral absolutist, Foyle doggedly pursues injustice wherever the trail leads, whether into the mansions of the rich or the flats or the lower middle class. Throughout the series, Foyle runs into the walls of official secrecy, barriers erected by those who put geopolitical necessity above the law—and he will have none of it. He’s not popular in London, and if not for his successful track record and the wartime shortage of good men, Foyle might have been sacked.
Although capable of bitter irony, Foyle is seldom given to levity; his spirit is heavy but his sidekick, the perky and insistent Sam Stuart (Honeysuckle Weeks), buoys him. The young woman irks Foyle at first, but soon proves her worth. Loyalty is a virtue, but one supposes that if Sam had fallen to the temptations of the black market or ration book fraud, Foyle would have turned her in. He is loathe to waive the rules.
The crimes Foyle investigates are linked to the war, but most are embroiled in the same passions and impulses that motivate crime at all times. The war disrupted everything and everyone, yet human nature, with its greed, impulsiveness and tendency to shirk responsibility, remains constant through blackouts, food shortages and the occasional Luftwaffe air raid. Foyle solves crimes through insistent questioning and acute skepticism without the aid of those tools indispensable for most contemporary TV detectives—DNA samples, computer databases and security camera footage.
“The Home Front Series” is released by Acorn Media, the company chiefly responsible for packaging British television for home consumption in the U.S. Acorn commissioned Season Six, and more seasons are on the horizon, taking Foyle into the Cold War as it heats up. The 22-disc set includes bonus material such as interviews with cast and the series creator, Anthony Horowitz.
