'Dalgliesh' Returns for Season 3 with a "Death in Holy Orders"

Season 3 of Dalgliesh opens with a two-part adaptation of the P.D. James novel Death in Holy Orders. The opening installments have everything we love about this series — a picturesque, remote setting inhabited by a cast of eccentrics at each others’ throats in a Gothic revival ecclesiastical building. St. Anselm’s Seminary, an Anglo-Catholic theological college, is in trouble, dealing with the fallout from an unresolved master/pupil scandal. The new Archdeacon Matthew Crampton (Andrew Havill) is on his way, as Fr. John Betterton (major guest star Anton Lesser) is fearful and depressed over his impending visit.

His sister, Agatha (Phoebe Nicholls), tries to cheer him before resorting to gin. The Archdeacon is greeted by the Warden, Fr. Sebastian (Richard Linden), and Fr. Peregrine (Michael Jenn). The tiny congregation includes the Betterton siblings, John and his sister Agatha (openly drunk), and their ward, Raphael Arbuthnot (Charlie Cain), descended from the estate’s original owners, now an ordinant. The Archdeacon also brought Dr. Emma Lavenham (Claire Goose) from a London auction house to appraise the Seminary’s treasure, an altar triptych attributed to a Dutch Old Master, worth ~£2m.

The trustees are gobsmacked as the Archdeacon reveals he plans to sell the land and modernize, using new-fangled ideas such as democratization. Fr. Peregrine blames the Seminary’s decline on John’s affair with a pupil, Ronald Treeves, who committed suicide. After services, the Archdeacon and Sebastian linger, putting to bed years of rivalry. Later that night, an anonymous note pushed under his bedroom door summons the Archdeacon to the church. The following day, Dr. Lavenham, woken by the sound of bells, finds John weeping over the Archdeacon, dead from a blow from a hefty silver candlestick.