The WORST episodes of Lewis

Every episode of Lewis ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of Lewis!

A spin-off of the popular series Inspector Morse, a special two-hour drama picked up five years after the series ended. It is now continuing in its own series, with Lewis and Hathaway investigating in Morse's old stomping ground of Oxford.

Last Updated: 11/8/2024Network: ITV1Status: Ended
Life Born of Fire
star
6.43
376 votes

#1 - Life Born of Fire

Season 2 - Episode 3 - Aired 3/9/2008

The suicide of a young member of a religious sect raises questions about it. Known as The Garden, suspicions change when more murders take place connected to it.

Directors: Richard Spence
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
The Indelible Stain
star
7.09
288 votes

#2 - The Indelible Stain

Season 6 - Episode 4 - Aired 6/6/2012

A visiting professor is found strangled after delivering a controversial lecture. Lewis and Hathaway have no shortage of suspects, but when one of them is also murdered, her affair with a married professor of Criminology takes the investigation in another direction.

Directors: Tim Fywell
Watch Now:Amazon
Wild Justice
star
7.34
356 votes

#3 - Wild Justice

Season 5 - Episode 2 - Aired 4/11/2011

A female bishop visiting St Gerard's College is found dead after drinking poisoned wine, and when another two killings occur, both mirroring macabre murders from Jacobean revenge tragedy, it appears the culprit is targeting candidates in the election to become vice-regent. However, when Innocent learns one of the suspects is hiding a dark secret, Lewis and Hathaway realise the motive is much more twisted.

Directors: Hettie Macdonald
Watch Now:Amazon
Intelligent Design (1)
star
7.60
231 votes

#4 - Intelligent Design (1)

Season 7 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/4/2013

The body of Richard Seager a former Biochemist, is found under a Jaguar Mark 2. The day before, the victim had been collected from prison by his wife, Martha Seager after serving a year for causing death by dangerous driving. Before his death, Seager managed to scratch the number ‘500’ into the car’s paintwork.

Directors: Tim Fywell
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
One for Sorrow (1)
star
7.75
203 votes

#5 - One for Sorrow (1)

Season 9 - Episode 1 - Aired 10/6/2015

Lewis and Hathaway are called in to investigate the apparent death by drug overdose of over achieving student and amateur taxidermist Talika Desai.

Watch Now:Amazon
One for Sorrow (2)
star
7.77
177 votes

#6 - One for Sorrow (2)

Season 9 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/13/2015

Faced with the seemingly impossible task of identifying the remains of a body discovered in a well, Lewis has also got to contend with new boss Chief Superintendent Moody. Realising that the body in the well is connected to the murder of young artist Talika Desai, the police follow leads into the worlds of drugs, social media and the homeless community, but will they manage to link all the pieces together?

Watch Now:Amazon
Down Among the Fearful (1)
star
7.80
244 votes

#7 - Down Among the Fearful (1)

Season 7 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/7/2013

Lewis and Hathaway are called in to investigate the death of Reuben Beatty who works at the University of Oxford’s Department of Psychology. He has been discovered dead injected by etorphine, a paralysing agent in the offices of psychic ‘Randolph James’.

Watch Now:Amazon
Magnum Opus (2)
star
7.82
166 votes

#8 - Magnum Opus (2)

Season 9 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/27/2015

The team must uncover the guilty secret their victims share in order to learn the identity of not just the killer but the potential victim too.

Watch Now:Amazon
Whom the Gods Would Destroy
star
7.82
420 votes

#9 - Whom the Gods Would Destroy

Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 2/18/2007

The murder of an Oxford graduate sees Lewis and Hathaway investigating the crime. The investigation leads to them to some ex students who are hiding a deadly secret.

Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Music to Die For
star
7.85
373 votes

#10 - Music to Die For

Season 2 - Episode 2 - Aired 3/2/2008

Professor Cole is a respected German history professor. When he is found dead it emerges that he patronised an illegal boxing club. Could his death have been an underworld killing?

Directors: Bill Anderson
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Fearful Symmetry
star
7.90
201 votes

#11 - Fearful Symmetry

Season 6 - Episode 3 - Aired 5/30/2012

Lewis and Hathaway investigate the murder of a baby-sitter, and uncover a swingers' network. The detectives must establish whether the girl's fate is connected to her time spent in a children's home, or whether she was an unintended victim.

Directors: Nicholas Renton
Watch Now:Amazon
Entry Wounds (1)
star
7.90
268 votes

#12 - Entry Wounds (1)

Season 8 - Episode 1 - Aired 10/10/2014

Hathaway has been promoted to Inspector after an extended break from the force, and Lewis is enjoying retired life until he's asked to team up with his old colleague again.

Directors: Nicholas Renton
Watch Now:Amazon
The Point of Vanishing
star
7.90
371 votes

#13 - The Point of Vanishing

Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/5/2009

A man is murdered in his bath tub. He turns out to be the christian fundamentalist and former heroin addict Stephen Mullan.

Watch Now:Amazon
Generation of Vipers
star
7.93
222 votes

#14 - Generation of Vipers

Season 6 - Episode 2 - Aired 5/23/2012

Lewis and Hathaway are drawn into a world of virtual bullying, but very real murder, when Professor Miranda Thornton is found dead after her dating video is leaked onto a vicious website. Miranda's death initially looks like suicide but, as the detectives dig deeper, they realise that it is actually the final revenge of an old enemy.

Directors: David O'Neill
Watch Now:Amazon
The Great and the Good
star
7.94
348 votes

#15 - The Great and the Good

Season 2 - Episode 4 - Aired 3/16/2008

Oswald Cooper is the prime suspect in the rape of a teenage girl, but presents an alibi supported by three pillars of the community. When Cooper is murdered, Lewis discovers a web of deceit going back 20 years, in which the dead man was used by the trio to cover up a sordid series of secrets - but the case soon takes on a personal dimension for the inspector.

Directors: Stuart Orme
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Intelligent Design (2)
star
7.97
155 votes

#16 - Intelligent Design (2)

Season 7 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/11/2013

Lewis, Hathaway and Hobson look around the new crime scene as Carl Drew, Stella Drew, Martha Seager, Adam Tibbit, Graham Yardley and Adam’s girlfriend Rachel Cliff wait anxiously. The body is revealed to be that of Soo-Min Chong, a Korean student who vanished 15 years ago. Seager was the last person to see her alive, Carl Drew was her boyfriend, and she was Martha’s organ scholar at the chapel. Hathaway is later shocked to discover Adam’s body at the school, with a simple suicide note. Carl, Adam’s former teacher believes that he must have pushed the boy too hard. Forensics end up revealing a close relative of Adam’s had been in Seager’s car. After Martha is found stabbed to death, Lewis and Hathaway start to close in on the killer who is becoming more desperate to cover their tracks.

Directors: Tim Fywell
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
The Gift of Promise
star
7.97
330 votes

#17 - The Gift of Promise

Season 5 - Episode 4 - Aired 4/24/2011

When a local businesswoman is bludgeoned to death, it appears to be a blackmail plot gone wrong. As the body count rises, Lewis and Hathaway realize there is a decades-old secret at the heart of the case, which they must uncover to bring the present-day murders to a halt.

Directors: Metin Hüseyin
Writer: Colin Dexter
Watch Now:Amazon
Entry Wounds (2)
star
7.98
202 votes

#18 - Entry Wounds (2)

Season 8 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/17/2014

It soon becomes obvious that the case has everything to do with Alastair’s failure to save the life of a badly hurt teenager, Nabeel Sira, during surgery. The hospital staff have closed ranks and the boy’s parents are considering their options. A second murder then happens.

Directors: Nicholas Renton
Watch Now:Amazon
Magnum Opus (1)
star
7.99
173 votes

#19 - Magnum Opus (1)

Season 9 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/20/2015

Lewis and Hathaway are called to investigate a body in some woodland. But realising three more murders are to follow, the team must hurry to catch the killer, before they happen. Hathaway is struggling to cope with his father’s illness, as he begins his search to find out who he was before the dementia kicked in.

Watch Now:Amazon
The Dead of Winter
star
8.01
307 votes

#20 - The Dead of Winter

Season 4 - Episode 1 - Aired 5/2/2010

After the body of Dr Stephen Black is found on an Oxford tour bus, DI Lewis and DS Hathaway are lead to Crevecoeur Hall, a sprawling Oxford estate where Hathaway spent much of his childhood. Lewis begins to worry that a previous case involving the murder of a ten-year-old girl has begun to affect Hathaway's state of mind, while Hathaway himself seems more interested in the glamorous Scarlett Mortmaigne, the daughter of the owner of Crevecoeur. When another body is discovered on the estate, Hathaway's refusal to believe that the family are involved threatens to tests his relationship with Lewis to breaking point.

Directors: Bill Anderson
Writer: Colin Dexter
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
The Quality of Mercy
star
8.01
401 votes

#21 - The Quality of Mercy

Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 3/29/2009

Lewis and Hathaway have to investigate the murder of Richard Scott, a rising star in the Oxford student theatre. Scott was killed with a prop dagger during a play. It turns out he was not that popular.

Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
What Lies Tangled (1)
star
8.03
179 votes

#22 - What Lies Tangled (1)

Season 9 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/3/2015

When an idyllic Oxford summer's day is torn asunder by a gruesome parcel bomb, Lewis and Hathaway are called in to investigate

Watch Now:Amazon
The Mind Has Mountains
star
8.06
322 votes

#23 - The Mind Has Mountains

Season 5 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/17/2011

When a student is found dead during a college-based clinical trial for a new anti-depressant, Lewis and Hathaway struggle to determine whether the incident was murder or suicide, and receive little assistance from the institution's evasive psychiatric professor. A second student's death then leads to the revelation that the trial's participants are all operating under the influence of mind-altering drug ketamine, and that the lines between love, obsession and madness have become dangerously blurred.

Directors: Charles Palmer
Writer: Colin Dexter
Watch Now:Amazon
Counter Culture Blues
star
8.09
287 votes

#24 - Counter Culture Blues

Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 4/12/2009

Lewis, called out to deal with a noise complaint, is shocked to meet a rock singer he had once admired, and who was believed to have drowned. The body of a teenage boy, who has been repeatedly run over by a vehicle, points to a connection with members of the band.

Watch Now:Amazon
star
8.09
201 votes

#25 - The Soul of Genius

Season 6 - Episode 1 - Aired 5/16/2012

When botanist Li Nash digs up the body of recently buried English Professor, Murray Hawes, Lewis and Hathaway find themselves involved in an impossible quest. Murray was a man who was possessed with solving the riddle of Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark". They soon find out that Murray had a rivalry with his brother, who is a lecturer in Theology and Moral Philosophy. They also have to deal with interference from Michelle Marber who is an amateur detective, who believes that that the killer is local medical researcher Alex Falconer.

Directors: Brian Kelly
Watch Now:Amazon