Hello everyone and welcome to a new post. I hope you are all well mentally as well as physically.
So, the new and final series of Endeavour is upon us. Below are five British TV listings magazines articles about afore-mentioned series which unfortunately all pretty much say the same thing. Anyway onward.
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All rights are of course held by the respective magazine companies.
Up first is The Radio Times.
Up next TV Times.
Next we have Total TV Guide
Next is TV Choice
Lastly we have What’s On TV.
I hope you enjoyed the articles.
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If you have a WordPress account then click the ‘following’ button. If you don’t have a WordPress account then enter your email and click the subscribe button. Entering the email only means subscribing to my website you will NOT be creating a WordPress account. (WordPress are the company that I pay to use their platform).
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What is Patreon? Patreon is a membership platform that makes it easy for artists and creators to get paid. It’s a membership platform that provides business tools for creators to run a subscription content service, with ways for artists to build relationships with their subscribers, or “patrons”.
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Chris, thanks for the articles. I didn’t understand some of the references to British shows, not being British. But I did get the sort of cryptic vibe that Strange and Joan might, after all, be a “thing.” I always commented that I thought they were not suited for each other and I still don’t think so but who am I to know! Just reading the articles, I don’t know if I am going to like the trajectory the series will be taking – and Gwen coming back into Endeavour’s life is certainly something I didn’t see coming. Like it or not, I will be buying the DVD’s from ITV as they come out sooner than the others and sooner than the series will be shown in US.
Looking forward to the original Morse streaming.
Thanks Chris – they all do pretty much say the same thing. I so agree Kathleen – the Strange/Joan thing I feel has just been shoe-horned in there. It’s disappointing that they never resolved properly Morse and Joan – especially as they could have and still moved on to Strange and Joan.
Kathleen – I have already commented that I think S8 sounds woeful – I am bitterly disappointed that the ridiculous and poorly written Violetta and the OTT storyline of S7 is going to be the driver of S8. Love the references to her husband’s crimes… don’t know much about British law but pretty sure if you live off the proceeds of crime and murder would make her a criminal as well – but hey she is a beautiful woman so obviously not in Russell Lewis’ world.
Chris – no covers in the mags – and for the first time (since S3 maybe) no Press Pack – Press Packs for Vera and Grantchester but not for Endeavour which seems strange – especially if this is the last series.
My early prediction is that there will be a S9 but without Thursday – and the Strange/Joan storyline is going to exit the whole Thursday family (Strange/Joan marry, someone posted a photo of Joan and she clearly is sporting an engagement ring – Strange goes to London or the like and the Thursdays retire and go too) so leaving Endeavour in Oxford on his own for S9.
This series stopped being a prequel a couple of series ago.
Oh and the revenge plot in the last episode that Thursday rescues Endeavour from ? (How many series is that?) will be Ludo…..well that’s my bet (again a woefully done character)
Hi Kathleen. I’ve ordered the DVDs from Amazon. I’m interested to see why Gwen has been brought into the series.
Hmmm, it doesn’t seem that this will be the last series then? I thought they weren’t going to do more episodes than the original Morse series? Interesting…
I’m very excited to watch, but hope this series is better than the dire series 7. I’ve just been rewatching all the episodes from the pilot onwards in preparation and the decline in quality is very marked when you watch them all in short order.
And yes, it definitely sounds like Joan and Strange are going to get together – it’s been hinted at in a few episodes. I like Jim but I’m not sure Joan is the right woman for him – it seems like a dramatic device to cause friction with Endeavour, rather than a true love story. She’s never seemed interested in Jim before.
The three episodes sound very different from each other and I’m glad it’s three separate stories rather than one connected arc like the last series.
Anyway, I look forward to watching!
Someone has published the Press Pack via a fan site (assume they received it from a journo) – interesting it is still not on the official ITV site (that I can see) only one day before.
It doesn’t really reveal much – which probably explains the repetition of the articles.
I thought season 7 was depressing because it was so awful, badly written, badly plotted, badly cast … Season 8 sounds depressing but more because the story lines themselves are sad. Hopefully they will at least be well done, but I already feel bad for Endeavour.
I have heard for years that Joan and Strange will end up together. I have never understood why as I have never seen anything between them that appeared to be anything other than mild friendship/acquaintanceship.
I think they are a bad match for several reasons. Joan seems to have really found herself in her social work career. Strange’s references to her job have been patronizing at best. He was very much the big strong man fixing things for the little lady when Joan got herself arrested. He is obviously very career-oriented himself and will he really want his wife risking his job advancement in a very conservative male-dominated profession by a) working outside the home (a real issue at the time) and b) working in a job that appears to be all the worst of bleeding hearts undoing the work of the police (“we arrest them and you put them back on the street”)? If he can’t “manage” his own household, how can he be allowed to rise in the department?
Of course, I can see Joan not realizing until too late that she has made a mistake since she has never once shown a lick of common sense when it comes to men. I think for Joan, Strange would be a kind but suffocating husband.
If she was as modern a woman as she considered herself to be, she could have grabbed Morse by the ear years ago and dragged him willy-nilly off somewhere to sit and talk. Morse being Morse, he would have toddled right along behind her. She could have sat him down and told him that they obviously liked each other and they were going to get to know each other and see what they had once and for all. But no, we had to be treated to their coyly imbecilic “coffee” natterings for years.
Also! We have heard for years that something awful will have to happen to Thursday as he is never mentioned in Morse. So how come Joan gets to remain a part of the story as she obviously is also not mentioned in Morse? And geez, we’re supposed to believe that the older Morse has no problem knowing that his former colleague not only became his boss, but also married the girl that Morse crushed on for years? Morse gets to see the pictures on his boss’s desk of the girl he lost? He has no problem knowing that Strange has Sunday dinner with the Thursdays (or what’s left of them) as a part of the family that Morse always idolized, but for whatever reason is now completely estranged from? Yeah, okay, I guess that mess could explain him drinking himself to death.
Well, I think I’ve whined enough. I hope the new season comes to the US soon.
Celine I so agree and resent that we have all been ‘teased’ for almost 6 series with Morse/Joan for them to go in this direction and even more patronising (and just a tad misogynist) that women marry men just like their fathers…..and she will go for predictable and boring is not very complimentary to the “independent” character.
But I actually think it is a ‘clean the slate’ thing – this is a way of exiting all of the Thursdays. I truly now think this won’t be the last series but that Allam didn’t want to continue – he will be filming his own detective series soon. So Endeavour will be on his own in S9 (probably introducing McNutt which would make most sense) certainly Shaun has gone from “I couldn’t and wouldn’t do this series without Roger’ to hinting that Endeavour could go on solo.
Agree – how Strange/Joan does not align with later Inspector Morse – not just with him never flinching once that the girl he proposed to and was ‘in love’ with was now Strange’s wife.
But the bigger one is for so many series everyone has pondered the how do they explain away Thursday never being mentioned – a horrific death, Morse having to arrest him or (as some have said) simply moving on – you don’t necessarily mention mentors if you haven’t seen them in 20 years – all good ideas BUT Strange marrying Joan makes Morse never mentioning Thursday later the least sensible of all the options – if he is Strange’s father in law ?
But Russell has always cherry picked with the series linkage which has annoyed me terribly – either link it or don’t but stop saying ‘well yes we have to this because of the later Inspector Morse series’ but ignoring other huge links with the series.
Violetta was a dreadful character – the whole storyline was pantomime villains,
Hi Maria and Celine,
It has ALWAYS bothered me that Russel Lewis was so careless at trying to at least have some connection and offer some continuity in the storylines linking Morse and Endeavour. There are many disconnects between the two and the whole Strange story is a blaring one. For only one example, In one of the Morse episodes Strange says to Morse he wished he had known him when he was young (!) And the complete lack of mention of what Thursday meant to him in his life, the part he played as a mentor to him for YEARS, ( not just one or two where that might not count for much) is just inexcusable in my opinion. Morse says to Lewis in the episode Masonic Mysteries that Mc Nutt taught him everything he knows when he was a young ignorant Sargent like Lewis. We’ll I think that credit would have gone to Thursday. . Even if there is a Series 9 I don’t see how Russell Lewis could possibly lay enough McNutt groundwork to make us believe the immense influence he supposedly had on Morse.
Kathleen – that last point is a really good one – if we are to connect the dots between the series then only one series with McNutt (with probably 3 episodes maybe 4) would not make up for 10 years of Endeavour.
I think the Strange/Joan is there as an exit strategy for the Thursdays (which doesn’t connect with later Strange) or for even MORE sad angsty Morse (seriously I am sure the later Morse did not have this much melodrama)
I know a few here have surmised re: Joan and Strange but it has been so fleeting and certainly her (and many of the fans) focus has been Morse – I felt the Morse/Joan thing was stretched out way too long but far better than Violetta becoming the love of his life after 3 episodes (and her barely saying more than 10 words) and the speed of the Strange/Joan thing….
Not sure if this link will work, but this is today’s article in The Guardian about the long life of the Morse series and the new season of Endeavour.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/sep/12/ive-never-watched-a-moment-of-morse-the-secrets-of-itvs-smash-hit-endeavour?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Great article – thanks Mary-Anne
I watched the new episode (not going to comment on it here)
But just pondering S8 – we all (me included) thought it would be the last series. I now think it will be the last series that we see Thursday, Joan, Win and possibly Strange. So it will be the ‘last’ of Endeavour in its current way.
I am wondering it something really bad happens in the last episode to Thursday and he retires AND moves away from Oxford – the Strange/Joan thing is a way out of preventing resolution of Joan/Morse (because it is resolved in some way) that and having fans etc. stop expecting the romance each series.
As Kathleen pointed out if they introduce McNutt for S9 that isn’t really long enough for him to overtake Thursday. So (just something Shaun said above in one of the articles) in fact there will 2 or 3 more series with a whole new ‘gang’ – establish McNutt/Morse, eliminate Joan as the continual romantic expectation etc.
It still doesn’t explain why if Thursday is indeed Strange’s FIL he is never mentioned but is a small issue when they have to exit (somehow) Thursday as his mentor and Joan as is great love.
Just a thought…..it came to me when I watched the new episode.
Hi Maria. I still believe Thursday dies due in some way to an error by Endeavour and this is why the older Morse cannot bring himself to talk about him. I believe the cast are leaving red herrings all over the place regarding magazine articles as they don’t want to let people know that Thursday dies and that it is the end. The first episode of the 8th series is certainly setting a romance between Joan and Jim. If nothing else Russell Lewis has his hands full adapting the Grace books for a television series to have time to write a new series of Endeavour.
I agree with your prediction that Thursday dies. That can be the only reason I can see why Morse never mentions him, unless Russell Lewis just casts that whole thing aside and doesn’t care about connecting it. I still can’t see Joan and Strange as a couple. First of all, why would she turn down Endeavour (intelligent, cultured, albeit moody, with high moral standards) and go with Strange who has none of these things, moral/ethical to a degree but not when it comes to his ambitions. She said to Endeavour when she turned down his invitation for “coffee” that she wasn’t going to sit by the window and wait for someone to come home. “I can’t do that anymore.” Wouldn’t she be doing that with Strange? How would that be different? Endeavour certainly wouldn’t have stopped her from having a career, as I don’t think Strange would either. But they are certainly two “different kettles of fish.”
I have not seen the first episode of season 8 yet, but I have gathered that they have set up an actual romance between Joan and Strange. I have hopes that it will fizzle out, most importantly because it irritates the daylights out of me. If her father can’t be in Morse because he was never mentioned, then how can Joan be in Morse as Strange’s wife and Morse’s lost love and never be mentioned? I would not have had a problem at all with Joan bringing some nice young man back with her from Scotland. It would have seemed a natural thing for her to do.
But they set up this grand will they/won’t they almost romance between bright, gregarious, middle/working class Joan and moody but kind, trustworthy, dependable in a crisis Morse and his solidly middle/working class roots and for years played with this idea. Yes, it would have been doomed in the end, but it could have been well done and how they chose to end it might have explained much about Morse’s later life.
But to tease the audience with that for years, and then just say nah, we’re done with that storyline, and toss Joan into good old plodding, dull Jim’s arms, turns her into just a cardboard cut out to dispose of with no regard for the character they drew for us who wanted something out of life besides a “two up/two down and a pram in the hallway.”
It annoys me because it is sloppy and lazy, and poor writing/planning. Build it up, build it up, build it up, and then end it in the dullest way possible? It reminds me of my cat spending 20 minutes stalking a bird ever so slooowly and then suddenly deciding to just abandon the bird in favor of licking herself.
Chris and Kathleen – you are probably right re: Thursday. The last episode is called ‘Terminus’ (not Flowers as the ‘insider’ said and I have seen stated with lots of filming shots) – apart from being a bus/train terminal – also means ‘end point’. I agree I have thought since series 1 that Thursday would die.
Re: Strange/Joan – that is a dreadful plotline. To never resolve Morse/Joan and suddenly throw Strange into the mix is, in IMO, a very unsatisfactory result and poor quick fix.
And agree Kathleen makes the non mention ever of Thursday in the later 33 episodes ridiculous- not more plausible.
Celine – I read in one of the interviews that Joan seeks out someone to marry like her father – I think that is rather sexist (and untrue in real life) also in S8 Joan is even more career orientated and a very modern progressive woman – why would she go for the very, very predictable Strange? Opposites do attract and if we had seen great sparks between them etc. but except for one scene in 7 series – nothing – all the sparks have been between Morse/Joan ad infinitum – anyway…
I do enjoy reading Damian Barcrofts interviews – far more interesting and insightful – the magazine articles (even quotes from the stars) are talking points supplied for them and agree Chris lots of red herrings.
In the latest Barcroft interview with Russell he says that if Sara Vickers had been available for S7 it would have been much different – I don’t know if that means they would have not ventured down the Violetta street at all or what……
Oooh Maria, what a tantalizing thought that is concerning what Russell said about S7! Now my imagination is conjuring up all sorts of paths that would have taken! But I do think that even if Joan were available, he would have gone with the Violetta theme and perhaps written a jealousy slant to it but then I remembered that Joan actually introduced Endeavour to another woman (the French one) with whom he had an affair so I don’t think that would have been a storyline. And there was also that separate plot concerning Ludo and the accidents…but maybe if Joan were available, she would have been the one to fall for Ludo and end up getting killed at the end and that would have explained her absence from the Morse series and Thursday’s resentment of Morse since he would have been investigating Ludo. This second guessing can go on forever but it is fun.
Kathleen – that is why I love his interviews – not the PR cookie cutter ones. He shares plot lines that weren’t filmed (but scripted) and the why.
I gather that for a number of series Russell wanted to take Morse/Joan in a different direction.
Ludo and Joan – haha – I think the more recent Joan would not have been attracted – maybe the early series Joan!
As for Claudine I always felt she was not ready for anything with Morse and knew Claudine was only temporary – almost for safe keeping. She certainly made her intentions obvious once Claudine was out of the picture.
For those who have seen the first Episode of S8 (and full credit for making a series under such restrictions) I got the feeling that Joan never received Morse’s S7 letter – but I probably missed something…..I often do on the first viewing.
One thing I do know is that if this is the final series ITV have done a VERY ordinary job promoting the final series…..I think this has been the most low-key roll out of a series ever. Shame.
Celine – i loved your comparison with your cat and the Joan/Morse storyline over the years – that made me laugh yet summed up perfectly how I feel about it too……
Hi Chris – I must admit (not being in the UK) I feel more and more that there must going to be either a Series 9 or perhaps a 100th episode – surely this has to be the least publicised Endeavour series ever (as I said perhaps being in the UK you see it differently) even the official twitter site is under-whelming. I can’t believe after so many series they would not flog it to the hilt – I was actually expecting over-kill once it was the final series.
I can’t decide whether another series or special episode is a good thing or a bad thing. I do stand by my wondering about S9 having no Thursday (or Joan) or Strange – but usually wrong about these things.
I was fully behind your theory re: Thursday’s death before this series……
The ratings have been pretty bad (for Endeavour) not sure if that is because it is up against Vigil (certainly a huge ratings winner) or S7 was so bad it actually lost quite a few viewers.
Perhaps ITV know there is to be another series and have decided not to waste the $$ heavily supporting it when they know they will lose out against Vigil no matter what they do.