Consider
it a portrait of the curmudgeon as a young man.
Inspector Morse would make a name for himself as the prickly but refined
Chief Inspector with a taste for opera and poetry. However, in 1965, Endeavour Morse was an
Oxford drop-out just hoping to catch on with the Thames Valley force after a
stint in the military. His first case
will be difficult, bringing him back to his former college in Endeavour (promo here), the one-off Inspector Morse prequel, premiering this
coming Sunday on PBS’s Masterpiece Mystery.
Mary
Tremlett, a local school girl, has been murdered and her former lover, an
Oxford student, has committed suicide.
It is supposed to look like an open-and-shut affair, but the details do
not quite fit. Constable Morse’s inquiry
leads him to the faculty member tutoring Tremlett (under questionable circumstances),
who happens to be married to Morse’s favorite opera diva.
Though
preoccupied on several fronts, Morse doggedly follows the clues leading to sleazy
car dealer with half the force in his pocket.
To proceed, he will need the career-risking assistance of his prospective
mentor, the somewhat Morse-like Detective Inspector Fred Thursday, who drives a
Jaguar and has little patience for his colleagues’ corruption.
For
a television mystery, Endeavour is
fairly successful misdirecting viewers, despite dropping some fairly obvious
clues. It also comes fully approved and
vouched for, featuring a cameo appearance from Morse author Colin Dexter, as
well as Abigail Thaw, the daughter of the late John Thaw (the star of the
original Morse series), appearing
briefly as the editor of the Oxford newspaper.
Frankly, it seems strange that Endeavour
was initially produced as a one-shot, much like the Morse spin-off, Inspector Lewis, but in each case, the viewers have clearly spoken. A full four episode season of Endeavour is reportedly already in the
works.
In
his eponymous first outing, Shaun Evans looks appropriately awkward and earnest
as Constable Morse, but it will be interesting to see how the character and his
performance evolve over time. Indeed, it
is easy to understand how this early case would appreciably contribute to his
disillusionment. Fortunately, Roger
Allam (who once played a suspect on the flagship Inspector Morse) provides plenty of color as the flamboyant but
principled DI Friday. The only real weaknesses
on Constable Morse’s maiden voyage are his suspects, who are a rather bland lot,
in an English upper crust sort of way.
