在外星人的眼中，地球人就是供他们玩乐的消遣。一群外星人打了一个赌，赌注是地球的存亡。他们在地球上随机选了一个人，赋予他心想事成的超能力，如果这个人最终成为了贪得无厌的恶人，外星人就选择把地球毁灭，但如果这个人依然维持着善良的本性，则意味着地球仍然有着继续运转的意义。 平凡而又内向的中学老师尼尔（西蒙·佩吉 Simon Pegg 饰）成为了这名干系到地球存亡的天选之子，在拥有了超能力后，尼尔的身边发生了一连串有惊无险令人不知该笑还是该害怕的意外。与此同时，尼尔默默爱慕的女子凯瑟琳（凯特·贝金赛尔 Kate Beckinsale 饰）也被卷入了危险之中。

关于宗教的故事——失业的天主教徒唱着“每颗精子都是神圣的”，把一屋四五十个孩子送去做医学实验，因为再也负担不起他们，而对门的新教夫妇一面幸灾乐祸，一面感叹自己“只性交两次，有两个孩子”；关于性的故事——教授在课堂上向学生讲解“性”是什么，但是学生总不得要领，无奈之下，教授把自己太太拉过来当堂向学生示范；关于死亡的故事——死神来到一个农舍，声言要带走所有人，但这里聚集了许多美国朋友，不但毫不在意，还热情地邀请他喝酒聊天，让死神忍无可忍……人生七部曲，七个沉重的话题却放入足够荒诞的故事，嬉笑怒骂讽刺世间百态。

Rachel James is shot through her kitchen window while having breakfast early one morning. She was having an affair with Dr. Julian Storrs, an Oxford professor who is a candidate for Master of Lonsdale College. When her next door neighbor is also killed however, Morse determines that the shooting of James may have been in error. Morse also suspects that he may have been a blackmailer. Both Storrs an his rival for the Masters position, Denis Cornford had secrets that would make them suspects. Morse determines that several others also had things to hide and any one of them could have committed the murders.

Morse is taken seriously ill at a museum reception and is hospitalized. In the hospital, Supt. Strange, visits Morse to push him to take early retirement, while Dr. Millicent 'Millie' Van Buren gives him her book on a 140 year-old court case known as the Oxford Canal Murders. The case involved the murder and rape of a young woman, Mrs Joanna Franks, traveling by canal boat from Coventry to London. The case resulted in three boatmen being sentenced to death and two of them hanged. Morse starts to read Millie's book and dreams about it. He soon has a number of problems with the case. Why weren't the three men also charged with theft? Why did Mrs Franks take a boat instead of a train that was much faster and comfortable and only slightly more expensive? Why didn't she abandon the boat after she complained about lewd behavior of the crew at the shipping office in Banbury? Why did she then drink and 'socialise' with the crew? What happened to her 'carpet bag' with which she arrived on the boat but which was not mentioned in the court case, nor was it stored in the archives with her, almost empty, trunk? The trunk was marked with initials of her first husband who had died. How did it happen that her shoes were found on the boat but nobody saw her return to the boat from the forest? PC Adrian Kershaw does some brilliant leg work for Morse. He studied history and has invaluable background knowledge. For instance, he mentions that the boatmen had bad reputation because they worked on Sundays and did not attend church. Later a chapel was built for them in Oxford. The dead woman's clothes and the shoes found on the boat are submitted to modern forensic investigation. The result is that the shoes did not belong to the dead woman found in the water because she was much taller.The shoes were never used in the forest. Only Mrs Franks' husband, Charles Franks, was called to identify the body of the dead woman. He claimed that, while her face was darkened and disfigured, he found a birth mark behind her ear. The prosecutor welcomed that information "that only a husband or a lover would know". The accused were not shown the body. The defense attorney merely claimed that the guilt of the three men was not proved. All three accused claimed to the end that they were innocent. One of them was not executed because he embraced Christianity in prison. Morse instructs Kershaw to investigate if Charles Franks benefited from his wife's death and, indeed, he pocketed 300 pounds insurance money. Case closed: Charles Franks murdered a tall women and dropped her in the canal after meeting Joanna in the forest. If Joanna Franks jumped off the boat at the same time as the dead body hit the water, she swam to the bank and joined her husband. The couple changed their names, in the case of 'Charles Franks' a second time after he 'died' as Joanna's first husband. The fourth boatman, a youngster who was not charged, was probably paid by Joanna to give false testimony. Morse travels to Ireland and has a grave of Joanna's first husband exhumed. The coffin contains bags of sand and some stones.

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