Friends in High Places

Series three opens with Lovejoy returning to Felsham after a long break in Spain, where he has been trying, without marked success, to learn to paint. The long gap between the series is written into the story: Lovejoy has been away long enough for everyone's life to rearrange itself. He quickly seeks out the old crowd: Tinker, who has joined a monastery, Jane, who has a new look, and Eric, now working as a security guard. Everyone has moved on a little, and Lovejoy has to find his place in it again.

Then Victoria Cavero, an old friend of Jane's, comes to stay, and Lovejoy loses no time in falling for her. Victoria wants to sell a South American gold ring, and that single piece of jewellery sets off a chain of strange events for Lovejoy and Jane: safecracking, kidnapping, polo, and betrayal. It is a busy opening chapter, all the busier because the romance is running alongside the crime. Victoria keeps her mystery throughout, which makes Lovejoy's instant infatuation easier to forgive.

Ian La Frenais, Jonathan Gash and Jeremy Paul wrote it, Sarah Hellings directed, and the new series opened with it on 12 January 1992. Ian McShane is Lovejoy, Phyllis Logan is Lady Jane Felsham, Dudley Sutton is Tinker Dill, and Chris Jury is Eric Catchpole. Pavel Douglas is Lord Alexander Felsham, Joanna Lumley, of The New Avengers and later Absolutely Fabulous fame, plays Victoria Cavero. James Faulkner is Alfredo Pereira, Nigel Pegram is Douglas Rimmer, Peter Moreton is Jonathan Waddock, and Tony Vogel is Barney Waddock.

The coming home structure gives the episode its warmth. A familiar face in a strange mood, an old friend with a ring to sell, and a divvie who cannot help falling for the wrong woman at the wrong time. The ring is the excuse; the reunion is the point.