Lovejoy (TV Series) Death and Venice: Part Two (1986) User Reviews

Death and Venice: Part Two

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 9 August 2018]

Part Two of Death and Venice has a plot that is labyrinth like as the narrow streets of Venice.

Lovejoy needs to help the pretty tour guide (with a dodgy Italian accent) get to safety after she is shot. Everywhere Lovejoy goes someone is following him or bumping into him and a few times he lands in the grand canal.

It turns out Pinder's offspring are less interested in saving the treasures of Venice and more interested in selling them or forgeries off them.

To this end Lovejoy bumps into Luciano, a skilled forger who is a Scotsman on the run.

Scene stealing Fulton Mackay plays Luciano in what was one of his last roles. It was always freaky to see him outside of his prison warden uniform.

Just as good as part one

[keysam-02610 · 8/10 · 7 May 2024]

Most people don't seem to like this story, but I do. Lovejoy IS at its best when it sticks fairly close to Suffolk, but leaving that aside, this is an entertaining romp.

Haydn Gwynne having been seen safely to hospital, Lovejoy sets out to get closer to the bad guys because he has even more reason now to pay them back.

This leads to him meeting Luciano, their head forger, who turns out to be a displaced Scot and eventual partner in putting paid to Camilla and Lavinia's evil schemes.

Lovejoy ends up in the Grand Canal again - and this time it seemed Ian McShane really does go in. Possibly.

The weakest characters are the two 'Aussie' policemen, both as characters and in terms of believing that they really had Lovejoy and the criminal gang under surveillance. Still, even though they pop up again at the end they don't really spoil Lovejoy's plan over all. To the contrary, Lovejoy and Lucky win the day and the only downside is that Lady Jane is possibly rather cross!

And Thus Died Our Interest

[skinnybert · 4/10 · 23 March 2023]

Honestly, there was a lot to forgive in most of the Lovejoy series: pedestrian scripting, superficial characters, convenient plot turns ... but it always seemed worth it, at least just enough, to keep watching. This episode breaks that trend for a variety of reasons, but most fatally by that one trope beloved of hack writers everywhere, the Evil Twin.

I know, I know; many viewers loved it all the same. But we were not among those viewers. We enjoyed Lovejoy for its occasional if erratic moments of decent, light-hearted entertainment, strung haphazardly over some mystery plot, and spiced with moments of humor that worked mostly, if not always. But when the good ship Entertainment sails over the Dumb Falls of Ineptitude, all good sailors will have to admit: they wish they'd bailed out at the last port of call -- which in this case, is any episode before this sagging if picturesque two-parter, which lacks everything of intelligence that makes the other episodes interesting, or even bearable. Avoid.