Endeavour, Series 8
by Russell Lewis (ITV, 2021)
Set fifty years before their broadcast, Series 8’s three feature-length stories work better as historical pieces than as full-fledged murder investigations. That said, Morse is back on track to morph from brilliant young puzzle solver into John Thaw’s slower, more jaded incarnation.
Service of All the Dead
by Colin Dexter (Macmillan, 1979); audiobook read by Samuel West (Macmillan, 2017)
Dexter begins with a lengthy series of inciting incidents to which readers are privy but Morse isn’t. Morse then solves the mystery by mooning about irritably, his moribund thoughts kept equally inscrutable. Sans John Thaw’s embodiment, the whole effect is rather dismal.
Endeavour, Series 2
by Russell Lewis (ITV, 2014)
Four more feature-length episodes. Shaun Evans and Roger Allam further establish their dynamic as the perceptive young Morse and his mentor Fred Thursday. Several of the murder mysteries, however, rely too heavily on stacked coincidences for their execution, obfuscation and eventual unravelling.
Endeavour, Series 1
by Russell Lewis (ITV, 2012-2013)
Four feature-length mysteries (plus pilot episode) establishing the young Inspector Morse as a detective constable in 1960s Oxford. Morse is not yet especially redolent of his older self but Shaun Evans excels with a very expressive line in facially portrayed inner monologues.
Inspector Morse: The Riddle of the Third Mile
by Colin Dexter (Macmillan, 1983); audiobook read by Samuel West (Macmillan, 2017)
The writing has an air of literature to it and some wonderfully poetic flourishes. Morse himself is a great character. Yet the mystery itself—key elements of which are artfully, rather capriciously concealed by omissions in Dexter’s omniscient narrative—doesn’t bear scrutiny.