Lovejoy Loses It

Lovejoy makes an exhibition of his sixth sense for antiques on a television programme, showing off the gift as if it were a party trick. Later, working on a house clearance, he overlooks an important item, and the small failure plants a doubt. He starts to think he may be abusing his talent, and worse, losing it. For a man whose trade is certainty, doubt is the one thing he cannot value.

Then a letter arrives, directing him to another divvie who has lost the magic touch. The meeting is a mirror held up to his own fears: what happens to a man whose defining skill suddenly proves unreliable? Lovejoy, who has always trusted the tingle, is forced to question the one thing he never doubted. The episode also sees him temporarily turn his back on his own ethical standards, to his ultimate regret, which is the most Lovejoy sentence in the series.

Ian La Frenais, Jonathan Gash and Andrew Payne wrote it, Baz Taylor directed. Ian McShane is Lovejoy, Phyllis Logan is Lady Jane Felsham, Dudley Sutton is Tinker Dill, Chris Jury is Eric Catchpole, and Malcolm Tierney is Charlie Gimbert. Alphonsia Emmanuel is Moira, Caroline Hunnisett is Tara Brockley, Dorian Healy is Jack Brockley, and Peter Copley is Harold Richards. Ken Campbell, one of British theatre's great originals, plays Ted Goat with the right mixture of rue and mischief.

This is the last episode of the fourth series, broadcast in April 1993, and it sends the season out on a note of self-doubt rather than triumph. It is a fine study in professional anxiety. The show usually trusts Lovejoy's gift absolutely, so an episode that asks whether the gift can be wasted carries real weight. The television appearance, the overlooked item, the letter: each one peels away a layer of certainty, and the divvie comes out the other side shaken but intact.