Inspector Morse - Season 8 (1995 - 2000) - Endeavour - Pilot (2012 Russell Lewis)

The Way Through the Woods is Russell Lewis's sole contribution to Inspector Morse, and it's a beauty, an adaptation of Dexter's 1992 novel, as Morse believes the confession of a dying man and goes looking for a body - much to the upsetment of Lewis, Strange and former DI on the case played by Malcolm Storry. This is additional to the novel, as is Lewis's suspenseful ending. Chris Fairbank, Michelle Fairley and Neil Dudgeon appear.

A year later in November 1996, another late Dexter adaptation, The Daughters of Cain hit the screens, written by Julian Mitchell and directed by Herbert Wise. I wonder if Dexter was beginning to tire of all the films that had been made from original ideas and wanted to stake his claim again. This is a great story about domestic abuse, with Gabrielle Lloyd, Phyllis Logan and Tony Haygarth as the unspeakable monster. This is all mixed up with the death of a college professor and a missing dagger from the Pitt-Rivers Museum.

Interesting trees

Morse riffs on William Wordsworth: " Bliss was it that dawn to be alive, But to be in bed was very heaven!"

Another year flies by before Dexter's 1996 novel Death Is Now My Neighbour is brought to the screen, again by Julian Mitchell. This is the one where suburban neighbours keep getting shot, and there's a college election competition going on between Roger Allam and John Shrapnel, resided over by the deliciously evil 'Sir Clixy Bream' played with relish by Richard Briers. Wives are Holley Chant, and Maggie Steed, who looks familiar and so she should be - Silent Witness!

In !998 we received Malcolm Bradbury's adaptation of Dexter's 1989 novel. The Wench Is Dead, a delightfully playful Victorian mystery which Morse solves from his hospital bed, aided by girlfriend Judy Loe, author Lisa Eichhorn and graduate DC Matthew Finney (Lewis is absent - he's away at an Inspector's course).

And finally after a two year wait, perhaps for Dexter to finish his final Morse novel the year before, we are brought to The Remorseful Day, adapted by Stephen Churchett. Mitchell did nor get his wish to polish off Morse - though he hadn't retired (is now 91). Thaw died two years later.

Whateley's delivery of the line 'Inspector Morse is dead!' is a real kicker. As Morse collapses in the college grounds (the way Lewis made Thursday do in Exeunt - the sneaky bugger!) we hear Fauré's Requiem, the same music that was used both in the pilot and the last ever scene of Endeavour.

James Grout as Strange is well to the fore in these last films.

Talking of which, as we had missed the pilot of Endeavour on our last rerun, we did agree to put it on when Morse was over. So we did. It was bloody good just how well Lewis took all the elements of the original and reinterpreted it all so well.

Inspector Morse - Season 7 (1993)

Deadly Slumber, by Daniel Boyle. A properly twisty one, this with Brian Cox sympathetic as a millionaire ex-bookie with a braid dead daughter in hospital who he cannot put down. And then the maddest and most far-fetched of the entire series, The Day of the Devil, in which escaped devil worshipper Keith Allen keeps changing his appearance every two minutes without any explanation of who's helping him... Quite fun, though!

With Harriet Walter and some strong women opinion. Daniel Boyle was responsible.

And in Twilight of the Gods, an opera singer is shot. Morse learns not to meet his idols as they are not exalted creative beings but as compromised as the rest of us. John Gielgud is enormous fun to watch. Robert Hardy's Lithuanian  accent is disastrous. Didn't recognise the talented Allan Corduner as the pianist. With Rachel Weisz, Jean Anderson (who we've just seen in the 1979 Lady Vanishes). Julian Mitchell wrote it.

Inspector Morse - Season 6 (1992)

David Haig insists he did not kill fading Oxford Don in Dead on Time (Daniel Boyle).. tuns out he didn't in intriguing tale. Joanna David is the Don's wife and Morse's ex - he does his usual thing of moving in in a most untimely way. Lewis sweetly protects him from the truth. With Samantha Bond, Adrian Dunbar. And in Boyle's Happy Families, evil journalists (portrayed by Rupert Graves and Jamie Forman) are as bad as the killer of another posh entrepreneurial family. Anna Massey is mother to Jonathan Coy and Martin Clunes. A young girl, Charlotte Coleman, is involved, and an acting Superintendent in the guise of Alun Armstrong seems solely concerned about the Press.

The Death of the Self takes us to a suspicious death in Vicenza (and Verona) and Morse just knows that the charlatan 'healer' Michael Kitchen (good) is up to no good, though local copper Georges Corraface seems intent on being unhelpful. Is opera singer Frances Barber involved?

Piazza dei Signori. The statues are the Lion of Saint Mark and Christ the Redeemer

Lewis doesn't even try the local food - idiot! Alma Cullen wrote it. 

And in Absolute Conviction, written by John Brown, there's death in an open prison, run by Diana Quick. (Cells are 'rooms' and prisoners 'guests'.) You'll find Sean Bean and Richard Wilson and Jim Broadbent (as good as ever) inside, with Phil Davies on the outside, plus wives Susannah Hamilton and Sue Johnstone. And a new fledgling detective sergeant is Steven Mackintosh, who Lewis resents, and is thus pleased when he manages to not quite end up the golden boy.

The finale, Cherubim & Seraphim, directed by Danny Boyle, is quite a departure, especially for Julian Mitchell, who in interview sounds a bit Donnish like Dexter himself. Thus the rave scene and Ecstasy like pills must have seemed as foreign as it does to Morse. (There's an interesting conversation about drugs between Morse and Lewis - who confesses to have puffed on a joint - which is nicely echoed between Morse and Thursday and Endeavour: Lazaretto.) And talking of which, Morse reveals a sliver of his unhappy family background, again, to 'Robbie', and thus his lament at the death of his beloved niece - with whom he had Wilfred Own in common -  which again Lewis R. pounced upon in his later films for Endeavour. Sorcha Cusack is his step-sister.

Jason Isaacs is the foolish drug developer, and there's an amusing turn from a switched on pathologist, played by Bill Wallis. Liza Walker is the confused young lady. The House music now sounds awful!

Inspector Morse - Season 5 (1991)

Second Time Around, by Daniel Boyle opens the season, directed by Adrian Shergold. Oh yeah - the one where Kenneth Colley is another DI who gets involved in the death of a senior policemen... again. Jenny Laird and Oliver Ford Davies may be familiar; Chris Ecclestone is.

The house location is apparently Pope's Farm. Hatfield, though I can't substantiate that; I thought it was the Howard's End house in Nettlebed.

Not sure I enjoyed Fat Chance too much. It features a disturbed woman who goes around ranting at everyone, and a disturbed priest who runs away and may have stolen some documents - I'm not sure we ever find out, do we, in Alma Cullen's religion and weight loss themed story? Maurice Denham, Zoe Wanamaker and Maggie O'Neill feature. But Geoffrey Case's Who Killed Harry Field? is much more like it. Morse, we feel, takes to Harry Field at once (though dead) because he's a drinker and an artist, and he smuggles jokes into the Coats of Arms he's commissioned to create for pretentious Americans (like 'Put the cat out' in Latin). Geraldine James is his wife, Freddie Jones his dad, Ronald Pickup an art expert and Vania Vilers a rich businessman.

Jones with Magritte-inspired portrait

Greeks Bearing Gifts is about the murder of a Greek chef, and triremes. Morse mixes with rich shipping magnate James Faulkner and historian and TV presenter Martin Jarvis and Jan Harvey. A baby is involved in tense ending.

A gem of a series finale comes from Peter Nichols in Promised Land, that land being New South Wales where a grass has gone into witness protection - Morse and Lewis come after him. Rhondda Findleton is his wife, Noah Taylor the son. Lewis befriends copper John Jarratt. It's a real tragedy, this one, and though Morse blames himself, the bad guys were out there first... John Madden directs, and Barrington wrote all the Australian country music we hear!

Thaw wanted the hard-working crew to have a trip Down Under; turned out it was too expensive to ship them out there and they had to use a local crew!

Bollocks of 2026

It's sadly early to start this list (5 January) but unfortunately we have a contender already, Hunting Wives, some crap about a woman who finds herself in the gun packing heart of Texas Republicanism. The title indicates how crap it will be.

Can You Keep a Secret? Dawn French, Mark Heap 'comedy'.

The Lady. True story of Fergie's dresser-turned-murderer. Just wasn't engaging.

The Fortune. Terribly written crap with Eleanor Tomlinson, set in Hartlepool. She inherits from someone she doesn't know and behaves implausibly from the off. Channel 5 bollocks.

Benidorm is Murder. Retired detective John Hannah solves murders. More Channel 5 bollocks. Embarrassing.

Little Disasters. Was put off by the opening seconds, Diane Kruger's look to camera and the portentous voiceover.

Death Valley. Timothy Spall actor turned detective thing. Not exactly bollocks, but life's too short for unfunny guff.

My Brilliant Career. When annoying Australian lead actress goes into a weird dance to modern pop music in 1900 we just through 'eeoo'.

The Undeclared Wat - season 2. Not bollocks, just boring.

Trigger Point. As insane as the last one. A series of bomb defusal scenes with a meaningless and far-fetched plot wrapped around it. Who writes this bollocks? If not for Vicky McClure it's unlikely we would have persevered.

Fargo - Season 4 (2020 Noah Hawley)

A custom has arisen between warring gangs in Kansas City that the sons from each family should be traded to preserve the peace. Ironically, they keep doing it although it doesn't work, as testified by Irish Ben Whishaw having been brought up in an Italian family. Come 1950 and the same thing goes when the Italians trade with the new black gangs trying to make a move. Whishaw seems to be looking after the rival's son well (himself having been in the same position).

The Irish are led by Jason Schwartzman and his younger brother Salvatore Esposito, who muscles in, and the blacks by Chris Rock and Glynn Turman (as 'Doctor Senator') (though Matthew Elam may be the bright one). Loved the left turn of Schwartzman's father seeming to be shot in the neck by kids.

Then we have E'myri Crutchfield, the precocious daughter of morticians Andrew Bird and Anji White, whose sister Karen Aldridge turns up with fellow con Kelsey Asbille.

Jessie Buckley is on brilliant form as a murderous nurse.

Timothy Olyphant is a very religious (and polite) lawman who gets involved. And Jack Huston (grandson of John) is an OCD bent detective who we thought might be an unofficial descendant of Jack Lemmon.

One thing though - we have finally left behind the nice police / family dynamic that was a hallmark of the film and the first three descendants. And for that reason is probably the least entertaining of the series. This is an - admittedly entertaining - power play crime saga, enlivened by the murderous prison escapees characters played by Aldridge and Asbille and by the shenanigans of murderous Buckley, who in a nice twist fails to knock off her boss properly. Also loved the way Schwartzman and Esposito became so close.

And the very ending - Rock's son, who Whishaw has protected throughout, is grown up to be... Bokeem Woodbine from Season 2! (Love the way they do that.)

It has a particularly murky look, which isn't helpful.

That's enough Fargo for now.

Sometimes, Always, Never (2018 Carl Hunter)

Written by Frank Cottrell Boyce (we're in mini-retrospective mode). It's about communication (or lack of).

Who, though, is Hunter? He's mainly known for shorts and was also a producer on Boyce's Grow Your Own - next on the list!

I can't imagine it finding much of an audience without Bill Nighy in the lead. Even so, it's incredible that quirky whimsy like this gets made at all. As such, it's quite successful.

Though it was once seized by customs in 2014, Marmite is not illegal in Canada!

Inspector Morse - Season 4 (1990)

Dr Russell's gone - no word of explanation. The Infernal Serpent, an original by Alma Cullen, is one of the best. Great to see Geoffrey Palmer as sinister - only wish we'd seen the look on his smug face when his head was bashed in. He's the head of a (very) messed up (extended) family comprising Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Cheryl Campbell, Irene Richard and George Costigan. With Tom Wilkinson, Pearce Quigley (Cutting It, Grow Your Own). Whilst Morse gets to the bottom of the family secrets, he doesn't manage to resolve the University being mixed up with a chemicals company, resulting in the death of a much-respected Professor (David Neal).  John Madden directed - not his first at all. That would be a TV play. The Pigman's Protege in 1982, then Poppyland in 1985. Frederic Raphael's 5 episode After the War came in 1989.

The Sins of the Father, another original by Jeremy Burnham, is about a long-established brewery and the murders that (keep) occurring thence. And it's a sneaky tale with old historical roots that I think would have pleased Dexter. The Sins of the Son would be a more accurate title. Features another of those hideous posh families headed by Isabel Dean (a TV stalwart from 1948) and Lionel Jefferies, Paul Shelley, Kim Thomson (another big-haired Morse woman) and Lisa Harrow. Plus young Alex Jennings and his mother, Betty Marsden (another TV stalwart).

Victor / Jennings (to Morse): "When I come out, I'll get you too."
Lewis: "I shouldn't worry about it, sir. By the time he comes out you'll be long gone."
Morse: "You're wasted as a copper, Lewis. You should have joined the diplomatic service."

Lewis is (inadvertently) 'a genius' again, and solves the final riddle.

Driven to Distraction, by Anthony Minghella, is great fun, as Morse persecutes the wrong guy, Patrick Malahide. Mary Jo Randle has joined the team, temporarily. Lewis puts his foot down and will not search premises illegally without a warrant - good for him. And in a fabulous season finale, Masonic Mysteries by Julian Mitchell, Morse is tormented by a 'dead' evil genius, Ian McDiarmid. Never mind about the danger to life - he loses his precious record collection that was twenty years in the making!

The Cole Porter songs are as usual Barrington's artful recreations.

Danny Boyle directed.

Inspector Morse - Season 3 (1989)

Not their flagship Christmas Day broadcast this time - fans had to wait till January 4. (ITV instead went for a seasonal special of London's Burning! BBC premiered Silverado. Huh.)

Dexter is now writing story outlines. Julian Mitchell wrote this again. Ghost in the Machine pits Morse against the aristocracy in the shape of Patricia Hodge. It's quite a straightforward one, this - comparatively - as we've a smaller cast of characters to play chess with. Her husband's found dead. Suspects are: the gardener (Michael Thomas), the housekeeper (Patsy Byrne), the au pair (Irina Brook), the au pair's boyfriend (John Elmes) and a little girl (Rainbow Dench, no relation). We can probably discount the little girl. Lewis is disappointed the massive country pile has no butler. Various college types are put out by it all. (Didn't recognise John Cater as a Dean.) Claire Skinner's in it for two seconds.

Max has suffered a minor stroke so we're treated to a new no-nonsense pathologist, Dr Grayling Russell, played by Amanda Hillwood. She's reluctant to divulge her first name - so's Morse.

It's only Wrotham Park again! (Last seen in Terminus.)

We're solidly back amongst the academics in The Last Enemy. Peter Buckman wrote it. A dismembered corpse is found in the river and it links to various college types, including Barry Foster.

Plagiarism and old-fashioned revenge play their parts.

"You really like him, don't you?" Russell asks Lewis. He doesn't really answer the question other than to reply "He's the best there is!"

"How do you know I'm a nice girl?"

She's also understandably annoyed when Morse keeps referring to her as "My dear".

The Grump manages to get a couple of dates - an especially funny one to a Jamaican restaurant complete with dub reggae... which I'm sure he just loved.

Anthony Minghella again wrote Deceived by Flight, the cricket one. Old friend, the briefly appearing Daniel Massey, is murdered. Did radio presenter wife Sharon Maughan do it? (I'm asking myself, actually - I can't remember already.) Lewis gets to meet another old friend of 'Pagan', Norman Rodway. With Nicky Henson, Jane Booker, Bryan Pringle, Nathaniel Parker and an unspeakable radio manager Stephen Moore.

And Alma Cullen's The Secret of Bay 5 - man found murdered in his car. Directed by Jim Goddard.

Inspector Morse - Season 2 (1987-8)

The Wolvercote Tongue. Adapted by Julian Mitchell. Originally broadcast on Christmas Day (opposite Marple on BBC1) - prime time Christmas Day. What did the public like about Morse? Well, he's John Thaw, so that's a big plus. The cases may be a bit cerebral but there's Lewis to counteract with common sense and wit. Morse is a maverick - when's he warned off doing something he usually does it - we always like that - and drinks too much - ditto. He may be bad tempered but he gets the job done... and is a bit of a failed romantic. I think that'll do it.

 A priceless artefact is stolen from an American tourist's Randolph Hotel room, and she is dead. Roberta Taylor is the heavy-drinking, long suffering tour guide, Simon Callow her ex-lover and museum curator and Kenneth Cranham a professorial colleague. Then Callow's naked body is found in the river.

Lewis is also on nights so he doesn't have to get involved in decorating at home - spends the entire episode yawning.

This is the one where Lewis offers Taylor a drink, then Morse, who indignantly replies 'Never while on the job!' But in the next film, Last Seen Wearing, adapted by Thomas Ellice, he gets a sergeant to get him a whisky in a coffee mug at a murder scene; Strange turns up and knows all about it and warns Morse to pull himself together. This is about a schoolgirl who disappeared six months ago. Morse is convinced she's dead because these are the kinds of cases he's given (the 'three file' cases). Lewis thinks more optimistically.

It's a merry puddle involving headmaster Peter McEnery and his wife Fiona Mollison, the girls' parents Glyn Houston and Frances Barber, and former teacher Philip Bretherton (from As Time Goes By - thought he looked familiar). Julia Sawalha is a brief pupil; so is Liz Hurley.

The book's C.S. Lewis

The Settling of the Sun is an adaptation by Charles Wood, and he gives the dialogue especially a Pinter-y flavour, whilst director Peter Hammond seems to be going for a Nic Roeg / Altman Images style with whip pans and zooms and things seen briefly, which all goes well with Pheloung's spiky music. The horrendous treatment of prisoners by the Japanese in WWII is (pretty obviously) at the heart of it, though Dexter's identity twist is a doozy.

Some of the acting is perhaps over-wrought from Anna Calder-Marshall; with Robert Stephens in a well suited role as a waspish Don and Avis Bunnage as the... whatever her job is.

And a more straightforward episode from Dexter's first 1975 novel is Last Bus to Woodstock, which will cost you just £1144 for a Near Fine signed First. (Don't spend £2860 - no! No! And don't buy the unsigned First on ebay for £1154 - why would you?) Anyway, that's enough looking at first editions.

Michael Wilcox adapted, Peter Duffell directed.

Anthony Bate is the Professor, his lecture attended by John Thaw, eager student Holly Aird and between them, Colin Dexter.

It was another one where no one was murdered - refreshingly.

The young man who has stolen the money and locket off the dead girl is 'angry' with her for standing him up in the pub and making him look stupid - Dexter catches his characters well, characters who are often vile.

The Lady Vanishes (1979 Anthony Page)

They manged not to fuck it up, therefore quite enjoyable. Based on the Launder-Gilliatt script, with George Axelrod throwing in some new jokes and streamlining the story. (Though he could also have tidied up a couple of things - the way the 'Froy' written on the window magically disappears, for example.)

Cybill Shepherd and Elliott Gould are an eccentric bit of casting, not sure about the chemistry (when he finally kisses her, he clearly plants one on her chin.) Did love though the single take where Gould pops his head out of the train window and then ever so smoothly the stunt man climbs out and along the outside of the train.

Wasn't quite able to enjoy Dougie Slocombe's widescreen photography in TPTV's low res print (Chic Waterson does his usual smooth job on camera).

A Hammer production, with Angela Lansbury, Herbert Lom, Arthur Lowe, Ian Carmichael, Gerald Harper, Jenny Runacre, Vladek Sheybal. Filmed in Austria.

Inspector Morse - Season 1 (1987)

The Jaguar was a write-off, which had come off The Sweeney. You could see the road through the car floor.

I'd forgotten that DeBryn (Peter Woodthorpe) is the later incarnation of Endeavour's James Bradshaw. James Grout is Strange. We take it that his marriage to Joan didn't take. The fact that her parents and brother moved 'a long way away' mustn't have helped.

Looks like it was shot on celluloid. They must have been using some small cameras to do those pans in and out of the car.

I just learned in the Endeavour documentary that the London Metropolitan Orchestra recorded every Morse / Lewis / Endeavour orchestral score. Which is an interesting claim, as it wasn't founded until 1994. Again - call Morse. Barrington Pheloung is the constant throughout the whole series.

Appropriately enough the Duchess of Duke Street's Gemma Jones is in the first one (no pilot, you notice - straight into a 3-film series one). It's The Dead of Jericho, written by Anthony Minghella (from Dexter's fifth novel) and directed by Alastair Reid. With Patrick Troughton, the same year he died.

Minghella wrote Morse as an 'incomplete, fractured' character whilst Lewis is complete. He was grateful that Julian Mitchell wrote the other two in a more epigrammatic style - Minghella had left most of Morse's sentences unfinished!

It seems Morse may favour a lime marmalade for breakfast.

Morse / Thaw encountering Colin Dexter for the first time

Silent World of Nicholas Quinn is an enjoyable story of a University group which sets foreign examinations - is someone leaking the answers? Cast includes Barbara Flynn, Michael Gough (who turns out to be Morse's crossword nemesis 'Dedalus'), Clive Swift, Roger Lloyd Pack.

Evidence of Lewis' bouncing off Morse with humour:

Morse: "You know Morse's Law. There's always a fifty-fifty chance that the man who found the body did the deed."
Lewis: "Well I was going to arrest him on the spot, sir, but I thought I'd let you have the pleasure."

Barbara Flynn's character: "I like to be in complete command of myself when working."
Morse: "Really? I like to let go. I always drink at lunchtime. It helps my imagination."

Things bog down somewhat with Service of All the Dead, adapted by Julian Mitchell. It was rather too churchy for us, had a large number of confusing murders and a not especially convincing denouement. Worse is that Morse is behaving like a desperate and love-sick child over Angela Morant, even though he suspects she's with another man - a Camel-smoking man, no less. Nice cinematography though, by Clive Tickner.

Also reference to Sherlock Holmes, 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time'. 

"The dog did nothing in the night-time."
"That was the curious incident."

It's from the short story 'Silver Blaze'.

Morse's watch, a Jean Pierre, I think, couldn't track down the model:

It was quite a big gamble. Each episode cost £1 million. Despite it being repeated on ITV, then Channel 4, they didn't really get their money back until foreign sales kicked in.

Trying - Season 5 (2026)

The older daughter is attempting to build a relationship with her biological mother to Esther Smith's nervousness. (I now find her really irritating.) She needn't have worried - the 'mother' is useless. Darren Boyd attempts / pretends to row the Atlantic. Then sinks into a funk. It's not really that funny, but somehow still watchable.

Cold pizza for breakfast? Yummy!

The Duchess of Duke Street - Season 2 (1977)

We were delighted to learn that season 2 has another 16 episodes; less delighted that Louisa's long lost brother Martin Shaw turns up for a job and begins to disrupt the entire staff; her mum is also taking the piss, outstaying her welcome at the hotel. Writer Julia Jones.

Then is Jeremy Paul's story, two undergraduates conspire to set up Louisa with their college professor Freddie Jones - he falls for her. Julian Fellowes is one of them!

A chauffeur inherits a fortune - £30,000. Louisa and his employer's nephew try and turn him into a gentleman - we know it isn't going to work. He is Kevin McNally.

In an unusual on location episode, Louisa travels to Charlie's bleak country pile, finds she's uninterested in her own daughter, who's something of a wild one, and that Margaret (Joanna David) is wasting away - turns out anorexia is the culprit but they have no idea what they're dealing with; she dies. Interesting to have this subject matter arising in 1977 - good for them. Maggie Wadey is the writer. Ian Cuthbertson and Liz Smith co-star.

T.P McKenna is a famous actor who seduces maid Holly de Jong (not to be confused with Upstairs Downstairs maid Jacqueline Tong) and Louisa sacks her without reference - the kiss of death. I think actually Merriman was responsible as it was normally his job to take up the actor's evening brandy. After a brief and unsuccessful flirtation with prostitution, a kindly policeman takes her back to the hotel and 'encourages' Louisa to change her mind. John Hawkesworth wrote it.

Inevitably, the war comes. In an excellent later episode, 'Tea and a Wad', also written by Hawkesworth, we journey to Bourgogne (or some English dockyard) where Louisa opens up a disused cafe for the troops. This is all the Major's idea, and he proves useful when Mary discovers a young helper is in fact a deserter. But the main event is that Louisa and Charlie meet up again and she agrees to marry him - let's hope he survives the fucking war! (Most of his contemporaries are dead - he's already being described as 'Grandpa'.) Best scene - she goes to tear a strip out of the Adjutant-General (Edward Underdown) and it turns out to be an old mate!

Then Charlie returns... but has a head wound. 'Shadows', written by Jeremy Paul, concludes with end credits that are completely silent - I think I would have gone with the sad variation of the theme but it's undeniably powerful. Geoffrey Bayldon is the artist. Leaving Louisa very much down in the dumps in 'Where There's a Will' by Julia Jones - it's her dad (John Rapley) who's there to force her to pick herself up. Now all we need to worry about is Spanish flu... 

Endeavour - Season 9 (2023 Russell Lewis)

Prelude. Bitchiness and murder in orchestra. Loved Matthew Slater's score for this one.

But the real plot - a young man found murdered, looking for his disappeared mother, connects to Landesdown Construction and back to Blenheim Vale.

Uniform. This is so clever, in many ways. Firstly the Inspector Jollyphant books we've seen, by Kent Finn have (of course) been made into a TV series - one which is coming to a close! But of course it also is artfully woven into the plot, which also involves a gang of over privileged aristocratic cunts who feel they can get away with anything... again. (And shades here of A Clockwork Orange.)

This, so cleverly, is the final design of the cover that was being created in Muse

And this is also so clever, the artists' roundabout connection to Blenheim Vale

The whole book covers thing is just one facet of brilliant long plotting.

And there's a final piece of backstory - Strange was raised entirely by his grandmother. What is it Thursday says, 'You can work with someone for seven years and not know anything about them'.

And, to conclude our catalogue of Morse injuries - he is punched in the stomach by former County police yobs, then given a good kicking by dodgy DI Danny Webb. 'Shall we say two o'clock?' (What was that great variation. 'Shall we say two thirty? I have a steak and kidney pie at The Eagle needing dissection.' Something like that. Sorry Russell.)

Fans of the Morse canon will know Thursday is never referenced in Dexter's material and so you think the most likely suspect is that he's dead - and Lewis plays with that deliciously (the fit he has outside college, the opening of episode 2, with a dead man with a trilby who looks like him). The ending, Exeunt, wraps everything up beautifully - Blenheim Vale (with a sting in the tale), Morse and Joan, Thursday, the corruption at the top, and ends with that killer Tempest quote from Anton Lesser and the Evans-Thaw Jaguar moment - surely one of the coolest endings to a series ever? (It also comes about after the choir has sung Fauré's Requiem, the same music that introduced us to Endeavour in the pilot.)

A nice little note from the ensuing documentary was that Shaun takes his accent cue from listening to Michael Palin, because he also has a regional accents that has been modified by being at Oxford.

Steel Magnolias (1989 Herbert Ross)

Robert Harling has opened up his own play to write about a group of Louisiana women friends over time. They are salt of the earth Dolly Parton, young bride-to-be Julia Roberts, her understandably controlling mother Sally Field, town dragon-lady Shirley MacLaine and understanding older Olympia Dukakis.

The men are effectively redundant, secondary characters. Quite right. What's the line in hospital 'I thought men were supposed to be made of steel.' They can't handle the real shit - that's why the women are stronger - the 'steel magnolias' of the title.

Oh yeah, I forget mousy Darryl Hannah who finds God.

What can I say? It's a good character study, well acted. John Alonzo shot it, it's well put together by Paul Hirsch.

Endeavour - Season 8 (2021 Russell Lewis)

We normally had a new series every January - because of Covid we had to wait until September for Striker. Also evident is the slightly depopulated  sets. And - there's something strangely routine about this one, which begins with a bomb exploding in a College Professor's office, killing a secretary, then involves a death threat against footballer Julian Moore-Cook.

Begins with hungover Morse oversleeping and thus not picking up Thursday - he then is daytime drinking in front of Joan, who disapproves, to his ire. 

He has at least done up his flat nicely.

Things pick up with Scherzo, a light or playful composition, in Italian literally a 'joke'. Involving a naturist reserve (in England? Perhaps that's the joke) and mini-cab drivers. Then crescendos into Terminus, about which much has been jotted.

Many of the titles are musical, aren't they - Canticle, Nocturne, Raga, Scherzo, Prelude...

"The sun always comes up. You have to wait for it a bit longer sometimes, is all", is Fred's poignant last line to Morse.

Sets are used extensively, of course, but this is Wrotham Park, Barnet:

 

Endeavour - Season 7 (2020 Russell Lewis)

Now we're having to live with three episode seasons.

Oracle. The Oracle is the woman who has 'seen' the tow-path killer? For once it's Morse who settles for the easy answer. Is his judgment clouded by his relationship with mysterious Italian woman in Venice? Directed by Sean.

The very sexist head of the research lab doesn't want his wife to have a cheque book. 'Oh no,' she agrees, 'if I had a cheque book my head would explode and fall off!' 

Raga. A Raga is an improvised musical work designed to evoke a specific emotion.

Loved Strange's attempt to cook cordon bleu (if you think about it, he's been fairly handy in the kitchen for a while). He tastes it, pulls a face, says 'sod it', and orders an Indian takeaway!

Look, it's all here, already. What's the point?

Thursday on the flasher's member: 'The last turkey in the shop'!

Lewis has a great way of seizing a cultural phenomenon specific to a time - Jeux Sans Frontieres, The Pelican crossing, the ad for the local Indian in the cinema, Subbuteo - as a funny way of planting us in that time.

Zenana. The part of the house exclusively for women. Thus the College's fight to remain women-only.

Morse is cocky - isn't afraid to slightly gloat when Thursday gets it wrong. Only Thursday was right all along. Their big fall-out - Morse says all Thursday's good for is robberies and the like, when it gets complicated he needs Morse. That may be true but  - it's bluntly put, to say the least. It's such an angry exchange - their only full on row - that DeBryn has to intercede - it's the only time he has to come on so strong, and it makes a big impact - good stuff James Bradshaw. Still, Morse is contrite. But we're clearly getting more and more into grumpy later Morse mode. Particularly when he can barely be nice to Joan for 10 seconds. (Actually I've jumped ahead to the next episode. But anyway.)

Endeavour - Season 6 (2019 Russell Lewis)

Led Zeppelin rings in the changes in Plyon. Everything has changed, and it ain't funny.

Thursday has been demoted following Fancy's murder - hardly fair - and is working for Ronnie Box, who he addresses as 'Sir'. (You notice, though, that Morse never addresses him as 'Sir'. But he does still address Thursday that way even though technically he doesn't have to.) Morse is in uniform! Bright is running traffic! Morse is back in the police digs, and has a moustache. He and Joan are not on good terms. Win is barely speaking to Thursday - goes out every night - no sandwiches. The new Thames Valley station is horrible. (It 's not the AA HQ but The St Cross Building, University of Oxford.)

Despite being told to stick to his police duties, Morse manages to resolve the death of a young girl and the disappearance of another.

Morse's car registration is 264 Hz - the frequency of Middle C.

Apollo. Sean directed. The one with the Thunderbirds studio. And wife swapping. And 'Catharsis Therapy'. Strange has engineered it that Morse is back as a DS and out of uniform, at least. Mose is actually nasty to Joan... I mean, what's going on??

Morse / Shaun responds well (as character / director) to the daughter Sasha Willoughby, who as Q points out is more of a mother to the boy than his actual mother, the hideous Sophie Winkelman. Russell certainly does write some horrible women. The book reference here where behind the moon is a beautiful garden is.. 'The Garden Behind the Moon' by Howard Pyle (1895). (Just gone on a major tangent into his muscular sea paintings.) The daughter has been reading Cherokee myths and thinks Morse might be one of the 'moon-eyed people' who see better in the dark.

Endeavour / Russell Lewis won no awards of any kind whatsoever. Which is absolutely insane.

And Confection, the Happy Families / Marple episode. Another novel 'Jolly Hard Line' from that author Kent Finn, who we met in Game (Adam James) pops up again:

The paperback cover for one of his books ('Just for Jolly') was also being designed by the artist in Muse:

And here's the original design for 'Just for Jolly', from Game:

'Jolly Hard Luck' is underneath. It is, cunningly, a tiny little study of how book designs changed over the years.

Deguello brings it all together in a brilliant (can't stop using that adjective) way - Strange's obsession with tracking down George's killer, the opium dealers, Thursday and Win, the reunification of The Four... Morse's new accommodation. Oh and the 'There's Pelican man!'  sequence - so clever and - OK I'm going to say it again - brilliant. (Clearly my range of vocabulary has deserted me this morning.) All centred around the shocking collapse at high rise Martyr's Field (the irony), no doubt a reference to Grenfell amongst others,

Endeavour - Season 5 (2018 Russell Lewis)

 Muse. Threat to steal Faberge egg. Is 'The Shadow' involved? 

Very funny visual joke (it's the calling card of 'The Shadow'.) What do we think? Is Trewlove interested in Morse? If she is, she's smart enough to know it isn't go to go anywhere. But new DC George Fancy (Lewis Peek) takes one...

Charlotte Hope is the professional prostitute who may be involved in murders. When she invites Morse in one rainy night we're shouting 'No..!' In fact it turns out to be a Riot Club-type story, involving unspeakable upper class cunts who feel they are above any law.

Morse is sharing digs with long-suffering Strange ('He's always been a prickly customer at the best of times') so they can individually save money to buy houses. He upsets Morse by putting his bottle of bitter in the fridge! (This lager vs. 'real beer' thing has been going on since Jakes.) And Joan is back in town... Do we get the feeling that now, if Morse opened up to her, she might...? No, I don't think so. Too much has happened.

Lewis is having more fun in Cartouche, which involves the world of cinema, past and present - Donald Sumpter is the aging horror film star. But criminal Edie Nero is once again involved and once again gets away with it.

In a funny side story, Morse 'accidentally' beds the daughter of Thursday's brother Phil Daniels. 

In Passenger, Morse uncovers a murder at a disused railway line, which may link to one similar from 1964. It's a brilliantly clever one. And more fun with place names - 'Gibbet End'. (There is a Gibbet Hill in Hindhead, where a sailor was murdered by three men whose bodies were then hanged there - it's mentioned in 'Nicholas Nickleby'.)

We meet the loathsome DI Ronnie Box, Simon Harrison, who has a go at Trewlove, then has the effrontery to confront Bright - who is incensed (good work here Anton) and kicks him off the case.

Colours. The murder of a photo model on an army base where Sam Thursday is stationed. How this works itself into a story about a horrendous left wing upper class bitch who revels in having met Hitler is a work of art - she's Caroline Goodall. Ian Pirie is memorable as Lt. Col Mad Jack McDuff. Race relations very much at the heart of this story, also permeates into the series as a whole. Though Quartet is very much a Cold War spy story, one of utter ingeniousness. Ellie Haddington, familiar to us from memorable turns in Foyle's War, has a familiar role here. Richard Durden is the lecturer. Despite Special Branch muscling in on the case, Morse will not let it go, particularly when an arcane underground society come to his aid.

And it is odd - extremely odd - to be back at (my old) school in Icarus, where Morse is undercover - and so is Trewlove. ("I must get ready for bath.") Whilst clearly there's a strong reference to Unman, Wittering and Zigo going on here (turning into If...), we are also exploring that same vein of upper class arrogance and violence that we'd encountered in Muse: these are the over-privileged bastards and bullies who end up as The Rotter's Club.

Trewlove: "They say that before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes. Do you think that's true?"
Morse: "That's a pretty grim topic for someone painting their toenails."
Trewlove: "What are girls supposed to talk about, Morse? Ponies? Kittens? Boys?"
As well as upending Morse's sexism, it anticipates the ending.

Funny to have Thursday and Strange come to interview undercover Morse at school, particularly Thursday's little stumble "Mor - Mister Morse."

Also, the Cromwell Ames - Eddie Nero conflict heats up with tragic consequences. David Jonsson good as Ames. Cowley is closing, but despite this, in the end, The Four Musketeers swear they will avenge George's murder. I take it Fancy is Icarus.

"Drowning your sorrows?"
"Marinating them a bit."

Of living with Strange, Morse says it's not like The Yellow House, which I guess is a reference to the house Van Gogh lived in (and painted) which Gaugin shared for a while.

Oh - Morses's new injuries. He's shot in the head (a graze, fortunately) and almost throttled to death by a KGB agent.

And - we learn that Dorothea Frazil was in Korea and has had a book published of her experiences.