O Morse! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The show has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
Endeavour is near, the code I hear, the people all exulting,
While Thaw eyes the steady keel, Shaun’s steady vessel is new and daring.

My apologies to Walt Whitman.

For some unknown reason I thought of Walt Whitman’s poem, O Captain! My Captain! yesterday while reading Andrea Wulf’s excellent book, The Invention of Nature. I’m assuming there must have been a word association that my unconscious mind had connected. Anyway, I put the book down and decided to paraphrase the first verse, (the only part of the poem I can recite from memory) the result of which you can see above.

Onwards and upwards. Here we are at the antepenultimate episode of the third Endeavour series where we lose a member of the detecting team but gain a new constable.

As always let’s start with the man who made the Endeavour series possible,

Russell Lewis who wrote and devised the Endeavour series.

He has also written the following Lewis episodes;

Lewis (TV Series) (screenplay – 4 episodes, 2010 – 2012) (story – 1 episode, 2006)
– Fearful Symmetry (2012) … (screenplay)
– Old, Unhappy, Far Off Things (2011) … (screenplay)
– Falling Darkness (2010) … (screenplay)
– The Dead of Winter (2010) … (screenplay)
– Reputation (2006) … (story)

He also wrote the Morse episode, ‘The Way Through the Woods’.

CHARACTERS

Apart from James Strange and Max DeBryn there was only one other character who had appeared in another series; Marion Brooke.

Elisabeth Hopper as Marion Brooke

Marion Brooke is a character whose name many, many Morse fans will recognize as she appeared in a Morse episode that is consistently placed in people’s top five favourite episodes; Masonic Mysteries, (Series 4, Episode 4).

Diane Fletcher as Marion Brooke in the Morse episode, Masonic Mysteries.

The young Marion works for Amnox and when we meet her in the Morse episode she still does. Amnox is of course a not so subtle nod to the charity organization OXFAM. Oxfam was originally founded at 17 Broad Street in Oxford, Oxfordshire, in 1942 as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief by a group of Quakers, (there’s those Quakers again) social activists, and Oxford academics; this is now Oxfam Great Britain, still based in Oxford.

Diane Fletcher who played the older Marion turned up in the Endeavour episode, Nocturne, (Series 2, Episode 2)

Diane Fletcher as Miss Bronwen Symes in the Endeavour episode, Nocturne.

Actors who appeared in the Endeavour Series 3, Episode 2 ‘Arcadia’ and/or Morse or Lewis.

First up we have the excellent Richard Dillane.

Richard Dillane as Leo Richardson in the episode, Arcadia.

Richard not only played an unlikeable character in the Endeavour episode but also played another one in the Lewis episode, Whom the Gods Would Destroy, (Series 1, Episode 1).

Richard Dillane as Theodore Platt in the Lewis episode, Whom the Gods Would Destroy.

Richard has also turned up in some of my favourite shows over the years, Cold Feet, Waking the Dead, Dr. Who and the excellent Wolf Hall.

Secondly, we have Joanna Roth who played Prudence Maddox in the Endeavour episode.

Joanna Roth as Prudence Maddox.

Joanna also turned up in the Lewis episode, Falling Darkness, (Series 4, Episode 4).

Joanna Roth as Christine Hawkins in the Lewis episode Falling Darkness.

There are three othe actors who have turned up in this episode and also Lewis. However, they are all extras so are difficult to pinpoint within an episode.

The first of these extras is Martin Mayger who was easier to locate as he has a picture on IMDB and has a rather distinctive face.

Martin Mayger is the man wearing the hat on the right.

Martin has appeared in no less than three Lewis episodes;

The Ramblin’ Boy (Series 7, Episode 2) as a university lecturer and a passerby.

The Indelible Stain (Series 6, Episode 4) as a passerby.

The Soul of Genius (Series 6, Episode 1) as a gardener.

Another extra who has appeared in two Lewis episodes is Charlotte Mellish. In the Endeavour episode she was a character called Annie but I couldn’t pinpoint her. In Lewis she appeared in;

What Lies Tangled (Series 9, Episode 3) as an Oxford student and a cafe waitress.

Magnum Opus (Series 9, Episode 2) as the same as above.

The last extra who also appeared in a Lewis episode is Janette Sharp. In the Endeavour episode she was a shop customer and in the Lewis episode What Lies Tangled she was a Police Officer.

If any of the above extras should read this please feel free to send in a photo and I will gladly add it to this post.

WHERE’S COLIN?

Colin sitting on the bench chatting up a woman again.

MUSIC

At 18 minutes and 47 seconds we hear a section of the opera La Wally by Alfredo Catalani, to a libretto by Luigi Illica as Endeavour settles in to his new flat. He listens to what is probably it’s best known aria, Ebben? Ne andro lontana.

At one hour and 26 minutes Endeavour is in his flat composing a letter to DS Peter Jakes. On the record player he is playing Chopin’s Nocturne No.1, op 27.

MISCELLANEOUS

At 19 minutes we get to see Endeavour’s mother for, i believe, the very first time. Endeavour opens an envelope with his mother’s death certificate and a photograph of her and Endeavour as a young boy.

From the certificate we can see that his mother died on 17th May 1950 at home in bed.

A very poignant moment in the episode. I’m assuming he retrieved the envelope after his father died.

One of the main events of the episode was the appearance of a new police officer in the shape of WPC Shirley Trewlove played by  Dakota Blue Richards.

I’m still not sure if this character was brought in for the right reasons i.e. as simply an attractive young female amongst a bunch of men to try and attract a younger male audience. Maybe it’s the cynic in me speaking. But maybe she is to be a love interest for Endeavour or is it that she has a resemblance to Susan/Wendy, Endeavour’s one and only true love?

This was the Susan/Wendy we saw in the pilot episode of Endeavour. Of course we can’t see her face but from behind she could pass for Wendy/Susan. Maybe in series 4 Trewlove will let her hair down, literally and possibly figuratively, and Endeavour will see her from behind and think he is looking at Susan/Wendy. Well that’s my imagination exhausted.

At the end of the episode we see DS Peter Jakes opening an envelope which contains a gift from Endeavour, Premium Bonds.

I’m not sure that in the USA these would be legal as many states have strict gaming and lottery laws which mean that it may not be possible or practical to hold Premium Bonds while in the US.

In this episode Endeavour gets all Dirty Harry, (Clint Eastwood film). A blackmailer demands money and Morse is the officer who will ‘make the drop’. His first task is to wait for a call at a  telephone box for further instructions. Those instructions send Endeavour to another telephone box. These scenes are reminiscent of scenes in the film Dirty Harry where the blackmailer has Harry wait at a phone box for further instructions. Not only is the scenario the same but Endeavour is even dressed like Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry.

Shaun Evans is Dirty Harry. (Jakes better look out because most of Harry’s colleagues get killed)

Clint Eastwood is Endeavour Morse. Well Professor do you feel lucky?

LITERARY REFERENCES

In the Endeavour episode the character Gideon Finn who runs the commune says to Fred Thursday, “consider the lilies of the field”. This is a quote from the bible. The full quote is;

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don’t toil, neither do they spin“.

Matthew 6:26

At the end of the episode Endeavour and Thursday return to the commune to find the building and surrounding area empty, the people having fled. Thursday wonders what they will do, go back to the nine to five? Endeavour quotes from Paradise Lost by Milton,

“The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.”

———————

So we come to the end of this post. Again, thank you for all your support and will do my best to continue to entertain as best as I can. I have a few fun blog post post ideas i’m tinkering with for when this series of Endeavour posts are finished.

Love

Chris