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.

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

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.