From Forbrydelsen to Foyle...

There was a moment - a few brief seconds - at the end of the latest episode of Foyle's War (ITV1, 9pm, Sun 7 April 2013) when I thought Foyle was going to do a Sarah Lund on us and see off the Nazi war criminal with a bullet before he could board a plane to safety.  How foolish of me.

Michael Kitchen as DCI Christopher Foyle.

Foyle, of course, stuck to his principles and did the Right Thing, as he always does.

Perhaps I'm biased, being a history nut, but is it possible that murder mystery drama, with which British TV viewers seem curiously obsessed, gets any better?  (I'll leave the examination of our national obsession with murder for another time.)

One terrible CGI shot aside, Series 8 of Foyle's War has looked as incredible as ever.  Unfortunately, the programme's greatest asset is the cause of its greatest downfall - getting the 21st century to look like the 1940s ain't cheap, and as a result each series is disappointingly short.

Still, can't quibble.  Better a short, high-quality series than mass-produced mediocrity.

And really, that is the only quibble.

Michael Kitchen is outstanding, as always, expressing more with one twitch of his eyebrow than the cumulative histrionics of most other television actors.  Lines are delivered quietly, hesitantly but forcefully.  Kitchen brings a new power to understated.

In fact, understated is an accurate way to describe the entire series, from scripts to set design.  Nothing is overblown.  There are few explosions, but when things do explode, they go up in clouds of low-key, realistic mortar dust.

The series is painstakingly researched by its creator, Anthony Horowitz, who reveals that he reads 4 or 5 books for every episode.  The beauty of Horowitz's stories is that he doesn't aim to tell epics of the whole Second World War (or Cold War, as in the latest series), but instead focuses on the individual.

The last episode told of the fictional "Operation Sunflower", a German exercise in Northern France in the summer of 1944.  (The real "Operation Sonnenblume" was an Afrika Corps deployment in Libya in February 1941).  The episode pinpoints the horrors of the war onto two men in a field of sunflowers.  By the time Strasser fires, Tommy's fear is palpable.

All this achieved, not with a multi-million pound budget, but through clever story-telling and some superb acting.  (Kudos to Lars Eidinger for his portrayal of Karl Strasser - truly chilling).

It was suggested by some that this series could have done with less of Sam's husband, Labour party candidate, and subsequently MP, Adam Wainwright.  Mildly "soapy" at times, I felt Sam and Adam's storyline placed the episodes in context within the changing landscape of a Britain emerging from the war.  Plus, as a lefty idealist, I enjoyed journeying back to a time when the Welfare State was an inspirational promise to future generations.

At its heart, Foyle's War has a sense of decency.  It is woven from nostalgia, depicting Britain at its best; digging in, making do and getting on with it.  The stories themselves are fascinating snapshots of wartime life away from the infamous battles we've heard so much about.  Throw in a murder or two, some intrigue and an enigmatic detective, and you've got a winning formula.  Horowitz says this will be his last series.  It'll be a shame if we don't see Foyle on our screens again, but he'll have left us some great TV behind.