Endeavour- the young Morse

The best of recent TV has been Endeavour a prequel to Morse and Lewis featuring the young Morse as a Detective police constable moving from the Met to Oxford following his good work in the pilot which was shown two years or more ago and before the most recent series of Lewis which has come to an end.

I had planned to do a piece of the last series of Lewis but other events overtook me There is just opportunity to record again that after a hesitant start and uncertainty on my part I thought Kevin Whalley did an excellent and credible as the Detective Inspector together with his university educated priest in the making sergeant. The series ends with Kevin retiring from the force and his sergeant decides against putting in for the post and leaving he force as well.

I thought the first of a four two hours programmes in this first series of Endeavour was good but the second shown last Sunday 21^st April was a brilliant portrayal of a young man in the process of becoming Morse senior. He possessed the creative intellect to see what others cannot and the drive and ambition of youth to go it alone, question authority and follow up his intuition. He is yet to acquire the experience and skills usually honed from having undertaken slow methodical policing as well as acquiring a detailed knowledge of the law,

Shaun Evans plays the Young Morse, the young man who failed to complete his Oxford degree but who maintains links singing in a University Choral group. His champion is Detective Inspector Fred Thursday played by Roger Allam who sees the potential in Morse and in the first episode uses him as a drive assistant much to the anger of the Sergeant usually allocated the task and who understandably is resentful and a thorn in his side. Some one else who is not a fan of young Morse is Chief Super Reginald Bright with another excellent characterization by Anton Lesser. The daughter of John Abigail Thaw plays the editor of the Oxford Mail Dorothea Frazil.

In both the openers the 2013 series two deaths which appear unconnected form the basis of the detective mysteries. A secretarial student dies and a doctor is shot while in an area where his presence is unexplained. The initial trail leads to a family where its head is a scientist who assisted in the creation of the Atom bomb in the USA and is now an Oxford Don with echoes of Strangers and Brothers and a recent Foyle episode. He receives threatening letters and there is anti nuclear protests with the credits both of which are red herrings in relation to solving the deaths.

His daughter is married to the GP who is killed and she cares for the child of her younger sister, portrayed as an unstable young women who has been placed by the family in an expensive care institution before being allowed to leave and move to London. Later it is revealed that the doctor befriended the sister and is the father of the child which he has financially supported giving the mother a 10 shilling postal order each week which she cashes at a local post office paying in half a crown to a saving’s account for the son.

Morse is attracted to the girl who offers herself as a means of gaining his attention and company but he behaves in a professional way but their bonding as friends means that he forgets to undertake a record check which shows that she has committed a crime of violence when in the care unit. Morse is put back on general duties by the Chief Superintendent and the girl charged and kept in custody despite Morse protesting her innocence. This is confirmed while in custody as a Vicar whose bicycle was discovered at the scene of the Doctor’s murder is also murdered. The vicar like Morse is an expert on crosswords and it is only late on that Morse works out the clue left in the form of the numbers of form hymns left on display for the next service.

I can no longer remember the details the full details of the plot but the guilty man is the father who runs the post office, protecting his son who frustrated and bored with his expected life assistant is father after the death of his mother has been earning an income selling drugs obtained from the GP. The young man has supplied the secretarial student not knowing that she had a medical condition where the combination led to her premature death. The vicar is killed because he comes in on the scene where the post master is killing the GP

Morse also discovers that the scientist has accepted a post in the USA taking his widowed daughter and the grandson with them. Morse uses his newly acquired knowledge of the law to prevent the child being taken out of the country and in the final scene he sees off the girl reunited with her child on a coach to London thus commencing his career tendency to fight for the underdog and take an unconventional approach. The episode is called Girl

The first two deaths in the second episodes Fugue only appear connected because of references to the last words of different operas which Morse discovers. However early on I worked out who the villain was because of the similarity to another a story vaguely remembered. In that story a patient assumes the identity of a psychiatrist who he has killed. In this programme a psychiatrist comes forward to offer his assistance and who suggests someone else, someone who does not exist, a former patient who he suggests could be the killer.

It is however the editor of the local newspaper who remembers the case of a 15 year old boy who murdered his mother in a horrific way because of a phrase used at the time and then repeated in the present cycle of crimes which includes four of five planned murders and where the killer kidnaps a child to keep the authorities occupied while he carries out her fourth. The memory of the editor is a name and a residential location which unmasks the killer and his adopted identity,

he then kidnaps the sister of a talented but emotionally unstable concert pianists as another diversion so he can trap the intended victim - Inspector Thursday as a stand in for the Detective Inspector responsible for his previous capture and imprisonment. because of the opera connections. The others killed were witnesses and the judge.

Morse is brought back from general duties to assist and during the episode he receives a surface tummy flesh wound and prevents the killing of Thursday although in fairness it is Thursday whose fearless action prevents his own death.

Young Morse is given the opportunity of meeting Thursday wife, young adult son and daughter when he collapses from exhaustion. The episode is full of glorious music from grand opera and Morse is shown to have vinyl copies of the music plus the libretto’s from boxed editions. Albeit a single man in a well paid job I am nevertheless surprise that he was able to afford what would have been expensive items, The photography of Oxford at sun rise and sun set was also gorgeous. Despite his heroics and cleverness he is returned once more to general policing duties.