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 - 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.

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.

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. 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.

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.)

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.

The Mirror Crack'd (1980 Guy Hamilton)

A draggy, badly edited film with deliciously crazy performances by the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis and Kim Novak.

Filmed in Shoreham and the delightful looking Smarden, both in Kent.

Endeavour - Season 4 (2016 Russell Lewis)

 It's funny how on each successive jotting on this the detail grows - have a look at the last one to see.

The important information we are gleaning this time is, of course... what sandwich, what day?

Monday - Cheese and pickle
Tuesday - Luncheon Meat
Wednesday - not sure yet
Thursday - Ham and tomato
Friday - how Thursday quickly works out Endeavour is OK in Canticle - Corned beef.

Game. Plastic surgeon helps war burn victims. Shades of Sir Archibald McIndoe.

Canticle. The poor chap who's been ruined by Mrs. Pettybon aka Mary Whitehouse, for his 'The Interesting Times' School-boy issue is a thinly disguised reference to the Oz 'schoolkids' trial 1971, defended by John Mortimer.

In addition to injuries catalogued in the previous jotting, Morse is clonked on the head and then drugged with - well, not acid, in fact - Henbane, Mandrake and Jimson weed - 'effects are not dissimilar to LSD'. Of course it's still 1967- Joan has only just left - if it had been but a year later none of this would have seemed right.

I don't think this is particularly a reference to a sixties band - more likely a nod to Queen's 'I Want to Break Free' video

Lazaretto. It's sweet how often we observe Trewlove sat keeping Bright company in hospital. Featuring an early appearance from Celine Buckens.

Harvest. 'Your journey will end in death.. but not yours'. Sheila Hancock, Chris Coghill. Anti-nuclear feeling well caught.

Meanwhile Joan thinks the bank robbery was all her fault. That doesn't excuse her at least writing to her parents... But then... 'Marry me'. 'I don't want your pity'. He's a detective. He sees before we do she's pregnant.

Endeavour - Season 3 (2015 Russell Lewis)

Ride. 1967. Morse is out of prison but extremely pissed off at his treatment and the cover up of everything that has gone on at County and Blenheim Vale. And is as a result living reclusively at the lakeside 'dacha' of a rich college friend, and gets involved with the local blue bloods (interesting to see him in this and the swinging sixties worlds), particularly the enigmatic Bixby (David Oakes) - there's a strong flavour of 'The Great Gatsby'. Morse has a habit of falling for the wrong woman; here it's a case of befriending the wrong man, though it's quite sweet how quickly the two seem to bond; Shaun's very good in these scenes. With Jemima west, Ben Mansfield, Margaret Clunie, Hilton McCrae, Vincent Riotta (as Harry Rose, a reference to Harry Flowers in Performance?)

I realise that just like Joan is always 'Miss Thursday', Morse never calls Thursday anything but 'Sir'.

Bixby's house: Waddesdon Manor.

Did notice the student death shot as a reference to The Death of Chatterton, also featured here.

Arcadia. An artist blows up. A woman dies of food poisoning. There's Rhodesia sit-ins at the local supermarket, green shield stamps, and a hippie commune.

But worst of all, there's Genevieve O'Reilly, a woman who just wants to get into Morse's knickers, who's disgustingly vile, and embarrasses him. (And, we feel, sets him up at one point.) In counterpoint, the most lovely and sharp new detective, Trewlove, turns up, played by Dakota Blue Richards, a Skins alumni who hasn't really been in anything since, is probably leading a real life. And things at Cowley have changed - Strange is now the DS and therefore Morse's boss.

Prey. Yes, don't want to repeat all the ideas I had from last time. For sure it's the Jaws episode, from the drunken dusk swim on and DeBryn - "This was no boating accident!" Well directed by Lawrence Gough. Shere Khan is a beautiful creature indeed. Funnily enough, all that original info about the tiger from D.M. Barcroft now seems to be missing - get Morse on the case.

And then the tense gang war / bank hold-up episode, Coda. Loved that last montage of Morse and all the different bits of Joan (if you see what I mean). Editor: Daniel Greenway.

"Drop it."

Thursday, already on suspension for beating up a suspect, almost kills the bad guy in cold blood. Great acting from Allam in these episodes.

And Morse's old Greats professor is dealing dodgy degrees (Mark Heap) - but all for the love of a woman (and gambling debts). His gay colleague says to Morse (of a pupil) "Alas, I fancy, a lover of oysters, for all my blandishments". This is apparently a reference to a scene in Spartacus concerning oysters and snails, and the possible insinuation of oysters being straight and snails gay - it all sounds a bit tenuous to me.

Talking of gambling debts, how come Morse is overdrawn at the bank because of monthly payments to bookies??

Morse gets pistol whipped in the face and threatened with death, after previously having to face down a tiger. He's also fallen through a floor in Nocturne, been badly beaten up in Trove and shot in Home. What with all that and the vile behaviour of various characters and the corruption that seems endemic in the force and elsewhere, it's no surprise that Morse turns into the John Thaw character of grumpiness and little patience that we know so well - something Lewis had in mind all along... of course.

Hadn't noticed Dexter in any of these.

Endeavour - Season 2 (2014 Russell Lewis)

A man 'falls' onto a car roof and the game's afoot, involving a College and a building project. Colin Dexter is observed at a meeting of dons. Already jumpy from the shooting, Morse is badly beaten up by London police. (He's now on too much whisky.) Jessie Buckley is a naughty student. Morse has a new neighbour, a nurse, Shvorne Marks. This is called Trove and also involves the theft of artefacts. 

Probably my favourite scene is where Morse summons Thursday, Bright and Jakes to the scene of the crime at 4 AM, and apologises to all of them for earlier being wrong, and also being insubordinate. ''What's the caper, getting us out of our kip at sparrow's?' enquires Jakes. Then as he explains, the guilty parties appear.

With Philip Martin Brown, Beth Goddard, Jonathan Coy, Pooky Quesnel, David Westhead, Liam Garrigan.

Morse is reading 'Germany Puts the Clock Back' by Edgar Ansel Mowrer, written in 1933 about the collapse of the Weimar republic and the rise of Hitler, and 'The Social Psychology of Industry' by J.A.C Brown, 1954.

Nocturne is the piece of Chopin playing at a girls' school mostly empty for the summer, populated by people like Nell Tiger Free, Anya-Taylor Joy and Lucy Boynton. Morse manages to also solve the original Victorian murders. 

The heraldry expert pronounces Morse's family motto as 'In deo non armis fido' which doesn't get translated but Morse thinks for a second and just says 'Hardly'. It means 'In God, not arms. I trust' but I love the way you either know it or like me you're interested enough to look it up. Who was it who said 'Always leave the audience something to do'? Ernst Lubitsch? Jean Renoir? Aaron Sorkin? It's like the earlier 'Hast seen the white whale?' Captain Ahab's cry to passing ships in 'Moby Dick'.

Of course this scene could also be a reference to a similarly jokey encounter between Bond and a herald in 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'.

And the playfulness. 'Midwich' isn't a real village, but probably a reference to John Wyndham's 'The Midwich Cuckoos'. A don lending out spare London flat keys for his colleagues' 'entertainments' = The Apartment.

Sway is the necktie murderer. That poster from Trove has been vandalised again, and I'd say it was a Jaws reference:

There's a sub-text story about relationships: Morse is seeing his new nurse girlfriend, Fred and Win have been married 25 years, but an old flame of Fred's (Cecile Paoli) from Italy reappears. In conversation, Morse's eyes flick to this stained glass window (it's in The Royal Standard of England pub in Forty Green, Beaconsfield):

I'd say it's Endeavour (left) and Thursday, wouldn't you?

In careful plotting, it's not who you think it is. Cast includes Gina Bramhill, Joe Bannister, Max Wrottesley (the Michael Caine type), Tim McMullan, Rob Jarvis.

Jakes is showing his customary affinity with gays, referring to the maritime navy as 'rum, bum and concertina'!

Morse quotes Rupert Brooke, 'The Soldier'.

Interestingly the slightly simple department store employee went to Blenheim Vale, a nice little seed for what's to come in -

Neverland, one of the most powerful stories of the entire series, which echoes right through to the very last episode. We pretty much begin to guess straight away that something's crooked in 'County', particularly in the form of senior officer Deare (James Wilby) and DI Chard (Vince Leigh) - when they try and kill Morse it's still a jaw-dropping moment.

A missing boy, played by young Louis Ashbourne Serkis, is very much at the heart of a story based on historical (sexual) abuse of young kids. Richard Dixon, Gordon Kennedy and even Sarah Beck Mather are all mixed up in no good.

'How clear, how lovely bright' by A.E. Houseman was originally quoted in the Inspector Morse film 'The Remorseful Day'

It's also stunningly well photographed by Rasmus Arrildt, who came to attention with episodes of Forbrydelsen / The Killing in 2007-12.

St George (Morse) Slaying the Dragon, apparently at the former Surrey County Hall, Kingston on Thames (now flats)... but I'm not sure

Interesting the back stories that are developing. Fred has had to relocate the family because of East End gangsters threatening the family. Morse's mother, a Quaker, died when he was young; his father is very unresponsive. Jakes has had a truly awful upbringing and start in life.

Little Dorrit (2008 Andrew Davies)

Of course it's Davies - the great adapter (he'd done Bleak House in 2005). But it's Dickens - you'd have to be an idiot to balls it up. (Actually, I say that glibly - I'm sure it's easy to get Dickens wrong.) This is an epic eight hour version, but is zips along just like the serialised version must have done. (There was a similarly starry 6 hour version in 1987, before then a couple of versions from the 1920s).

And what an incredible cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Claire Foy, Tom Courtenay, Judy Parfitt, Eddie Marsan, James Fleet, John Alderton, Bill Patterson, Alun Armstrong, Sue Johnston, Andy Serkis, Freema Agyeman, Maxine Peake, Russell Tovey, Emma Pierson, Ron Cook, Ruth Jones, Annette Crosbie. But Eve Myles is something of a scene stealer playing a woman who thinks she's only ten. Almost every part is played by someone recognisable like Darren Boyd or Robert Hardy. Also with Amanda Redman and Anton Lesser, Sebastian Armesto (foppish suitor), Alex Wyndham, Georgia King.

It's the usual Dickensian gallery of desolation, poverty, crushing bureaucracy (The Court of Circumlocution is almost Kafkaesque), idiots, well meaners, grafters and murderers. And - people falling in love. He's a genius!

1 - 5 directed by Dearbhla Walsh, 6 - 11 by Adam Smith (notably a director of Chemical Brothers videos) and 12 by Diarmuid Lawrence. James Merifield is the production designer.

My recent thinking on writing long form as like characters as chess pieces and how you move them around the board is very nicely illustrated here. Some times you move a piece you haven't moved for a while, had forgotten about. Sometimes, your pieces can change colour!

The awfulness of Dorrit senior is exposed when he becomes rich and insists everyone change their behaviour and never mention the past, putting it all on poor Amy, who is also lumbered with an overbearing governess in the shape of Pam Ferris.

Endeavour - Season 1 (2013 Russell Lewis)

Quite lovely to see these early films: Morse meeting Jim Strange, Anton Lesser coming in and not being impressed with Morse at all; meeting the Thursdays / Gwynn's trying to stop Morse being so polite right from the get-go; de Bryn clearly having a high regard for Morse; Jakes' jealousy.

In Girl Morse makes sure that the young epileptic lady gets her son back. in Fugue there's a great scene where Morse is recovering from a stabbing and lack of sleep and falls asleep at Thursday's and he gently lays his coat over him; when he awakes he's asked to join them for dinner. Gentlemen meeting in public toilets are 'chase me Charlies', apparently!

Rocket is the one filmed at the old Janssen-Cilag building in Saunderton.

Finally in Home Russell cleverly brings in Fred's back story and a nemesis from his Mile End days moves in, Clive Wood, Nick Court and Cynthia Riley. There's also been a murder or two. The Culprit is not one you'd expect at all, and Morse is shot.

Violet and Daisy (2011 Geoffrey Fletcher & scr)

I happened to see this on the shelf and thought 'What's this now?', took it out and saw Alexis Bledel - What?? Of course the first time round (2020) we hadn't seen Gilmore Girls or encountered her before. And it's rather good, an original written by the adapter of Precious, about two teenage hit girls (Saiorse Ronan the other) who find James Gandolfini difficult to kill.  Paul Cantelon's music gives it a sweet and sad feeling, and it's partly like a three-hander play, probably quite cheap to make. It's fun to see the normally placid Rory Gilmore as a murdering and foul-mouthed assassin.

'Jim' is great - Saoirse loved working with him. With Marianne Jean Baptiste and Danny Trejo.

Framed (2009 Andy de Emmony)

Written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, writer of Sometimes Always Never, The Claim, Goodbye Christopher Robin, The Railway Man, Grow Your Own, Millions, Welcome to Sarajevo and before that Coronation Street and Brookside.

Because of a plumbing problem, National Gallery curator Trevor Eve has to relocate paintings to the WW2 hideout in Manod Quarry, Northern Wales - a now (well caught) depressed community peopled by eccentrics. Surely those huge lorries could have fuelled up at their petrol station and got them out of debt? (And had a few dozen coffees while they waited.)

Encounters spunky schoolteacher-type Eve Myles (had been in Little Dorrit the year before - must watch that again) and kid Samuel Morgan-Davies. Romantic situation dealt with realistically.

Er - where are all the site workers staying? I thought there was only one cottage? Also Van Gogh Sunflowers with no security? Anyway, carp off.

With Robert Pugh, Mark Haddon Jones, Nicola Reynolds, Mari Ann Bull, Nina Sosanya, Gwyneth Keyworth, Guy Henry, Matthew Aubrey.

Photographed by David Odd.

I like this scene because they're walking exactly in step with one another.

One too many montages to music (the kids cooking) but otherwise very enjoyable.