I was greatly looking forward to the new (seventh) series
of Endeavour, the Inspector Morse prequel which follows the early
years of Colin Dexter’s great detective. Various interviews with people
involved have stated that we are reaching the end of Endeavour’s run,
although as an eighth series has already been commissioned by ITV it seems to
be a case of not just yet. The original show ran for a total of 33 episodes, as
did its sequel Lewis; the current series of Endeavour has just
three episodes which will brings the prequel’s total up to 30, so I think we
can safely assume that there will be a further three episodes next year and
then that will be, as they say, that. Shame, but nothing lasts forever.
Fan of Morse that I am, I’ve always been pleased when
younger versions of characters from the original series turned up in Endeavour
(spotting them has been almost as much fun as spotting the many references
to films and other British TV shows that have cropped in Endeavour from
time to time). With not much left of Endeavour’s run, I wonder about a
few seemingly prominent characters from Morse’s early life that have yet to
appear. What
of McNutt, mentioned as Morse’s mentor but in Endeavour
seemingly reduced to a passing mention in favour of Fred Thursday, so
wonderfully played by Roger Allam? What of Roland Marshall from the cricket
episode? Or
that curiously-named Machiavellian academic Clixby Bream? Most of all, what of Hugo de Vries, the con-man who was out to get Morse in one of the best episodes of the lot?
(On a more superficial note, I was hoping that at some point we’d
see Morse driving a Lancia as that was mentioned as his car of choice in the
earlier novels before he got the trademark Jag, but I’ve resigned myself to the
fact that that probably won’t happen!)
In the world of Endeavour, it’s now 1970 and the new series
kicked off with Morse seeing in the new decade in style, off to Venice for a
night at the opera and getting lucky with the sultry brunette in the next box;
compare that to Fred and Win Thursday who dined on chicken-in-a-basket at the
WMC back in Oxford. Venice! Quite how a sergeant in a provincial police force
who’s just bought a house can afford such a high-end break is a mystery in
itself although to be fair, the house is very much a fixer-upper.
Elsewhere, the new year bought another murder, that of a barmaid by
a canal – Oxford, not Venice – while another barmaid was acting a bit
strangely.
In the first episode, the parallels between Venice and Oxford were
played up for all they were worth, what with the waterways of La Serenissima contrasting
with the Oxford Canal and a lingering shot of the Hertford Bridge, that bridge
in Oxford that’s known as the Bridge of Sighs even though the Venetian bridge
it actually resembles is the Rialto. Given this and the fact that the
unmurdered barmaid was displaying seemingly psychic abilities in an early
Seventies setting, Don’t Look Now obviously came to mind. Perhaps
‘Canal’ would have been a better title than ‘Oracle’?
To be honest, I’m not quite sure where the show was going with the
psychic angle – both barmaids, it turned out, were test subjects in a serious university
research project into extra-sensory perception, although that aside here was a
typically back-biting academic set-up (are there any other sorts in the world
of Morse? Perhaps surprisingly, this one was not associated with Lonsdale
College). This being 1970, there was a heady dose of outright sexism; the men
(headed by a professor who wouldn’t let his wife sign the cheques) were
resentful of the fact that their department’s token woman, Dr Benford, got the
Open University-style TV job they’d all auditioned for. Alas, she did not make it to the
end of the episode.
In one of the more predictable murder cases that have come Morse’s
way, the sexist prof turned out to be the murderer of poor Dr
Benford, although the motive was unrequited love rather than professional
jealousy and the fact that she knew something about the canal murder (actually,
she knew someone – the apparently psychic barmaid – who reckoned she knew something).
The canal murder which had kicked off the episode remained to all intents and
purposes unsolved by the end – the psychic storyline was left hanging along
with talk of a flasher operating along the canal (how very Seventies) and hints
from the redoubtable Dorothea Frazil about cruelty to cats (hope the Castle Gate CID chaps catch that perpetrator). Then, just before the
closing credits, a person unknown did for the flasher; clearly, we have a story
arc…
More interesting was the character development. Fred Thursday, more
cynical and much greyer than before under the trilby, is clearly feeling the
strain – with Morse away in Venice, his investigation into the barmaid’s murder
was decidedly slipshod (fingering the boyfriend as the murderer in the face of
a seemingly decent alibi). Then he went and bought a couple of canaries (a bit random, that) and snapped at Win for no good reason (speaking of Thursday’s domestic arrangements, things have clearly changed as Win no longer makes his sandwiches, and when Fred had a go he made a mess of it; a good bit of realism, that, for many is the occasion when I’ve not done a good job of that task when the butter’s been too cold). Perhaps the events of the previous series, when he went a bit Gene Hunt by taking a bribe and beating up a suspect, have long-term consequences here (although, of course, he did give the money back). Anton Lesser got to do some pathos as Chief Superintendent Bright, nursing his dying wife (diagnosed with lung cancer in the previous
series – what with all that smoking, I guess someone had to get that, just like
Betty did in Mad Men) and worrying about his lack of faith in contrast the
faith healers who’ve come round to pray with her.
Jim Strange, Morse’s future boss, has meanwhile reverted to type; having
spent much of the previous series uncharacteristically pursuing the unofficial
investigation into the murder of DC Fancy, he’s now back in careerist mode,
berating Morse for taking crime scene photos home with him (his further criticism
of Morse for highlighting Thursday’s rather slipshod investigation methods with
regards to the initial canal towpath murder may have be a bit wide of the mark,
but that’s in keeping with Strange as a bureaucratic yes-man).
And Morse? First of all, thank God he’s ditched the ’tache; that
just didn’t sit well, last series. Aside from decorating his new house and doing
typically Morse things like solving the crossword and rubbing colleagues up the wrong way while being
three steps ahead of everyone else when it comes to figuring out who’s been
doing the murders, he started the episode with blood on his shirt. Whose blood? At the end of the episode, we viewers are none the wiser but no doubt there are a few ideas as to what this all means. Perhaps not unrelated to this, Morse seemingly has a new friend. After getting pick-pocketed
at an open-air concert (dangerous places, those Oxford colleges) he met Ludo,
who introduced himself as an old pal from their university days before wining
and dining the detective.
The kicker at the end, which is clearly something that’s going to
run for this short series at least, was the revelation that Ludo’s wife is
Violetta, Morse’s Venetian love interest, but my mind was on something else.
Racing away and jumping to a couple of conclusions, possibly in the style of Morse himself
(albeit without the help of a couple of pints). The blood on the shirt – does that concern this love-triangle? And this Ludo feller – a highly
cultured man with an ingratiating style and a taste for fine wine. Could he, I
wonder, be Hugo de Vries?
I may be wrong, of course (even Morse got it wrong, sometimes – that’s
one of the great things about him as a fictional detective, the fact that he
was allowed to do so). But, one episode in, I don’t think I am…
