A visiting American woman bishop was found dead at a picnic spot by the river Cherwell in Oxford. Beside her was an empty bottle of wine which had been poisoned. Passing punters had seen her there with a mysterious hooded figure, believed to be a friar. She had been at a colloquium in a college run by these friars, some of whom were traditionalist Roman Catholics. Could this have been direct action against women in ministry?

This was the first part of the plot of last night’s episode of the TV show Lewis, a spin-off from the Inspector Morse series also set in Oxford. Matters then got much more complicated, with more deaths. I won’t give away more of the plot because the programme can be viewed on ITV Player (maybe only in the UK, but for 29 more days – more generous than BBC iPlayer). Don’t worry about the over 18 classification for late evening content as this only

Contains one moderate scene of threat and some mild images of crime aftermath.

It was tame compared with CSI. And it was a good Sunday evening’s viewing, although not an in depth exploration of the issues about women bishops.