Confession - I am well and truly obsessed with the show Endeavour.
Obsessed.
Well and truly.
I grew up watching the Inspector Morse series starring John Thaw. Most Sunday nights we would watch it as a family, and even though quite often I would be sent to bed before it ended, I remember hanging around the door of the TV room listening for how it turned out. I could hum
the beautiful and haunting theme song from age 9 or thereabouts, remembering it note-for-note even after going for a couple of years without hearing it. I cried over the final episode when the drink finally got him. Cried doesn't cut it, actually - I felt like a member of my family was gone forever. I
grieved.
In later years, I realized I related to Morse and his intelligence that was never allowed to shine in academic circles. He was always looked down on by those in his beloved Oxford who could afford to finish their degrees, while he could not. I began to understand the angst of the character, the reasons why he drank so much and tried to drown out the real world with literature and opera. I realized he wasn't just a cranky old man who drank too much and liked weird music - he was cranky and drank too much because he loved humanity and couldn't handle the fact that people hurt each other, and he loved opera and fine literature because he was always meant for MORE in this life and needed those glimpses of finer beauty and art around him if he was going to stay sane. He never got desensitized to crime scenes because, in my opinion, doing so would have meant losing that last morsel of compassion that he, as a sensitive soul, needed in order to survive. He was damaged, perpetually heartbroken, and his sidekick Lewis was the only one who could make him see beyond that and feel some hope for the human race again.
After Morse ended, there was a gaping hole in my TV viewing for years. I wasn't into British mysteries on the whole. My parents were, but most of them did nothing for me.
Then came Inspector Lewis. Morse's sidekick had his own series, and his sidekick was more or less Morse as a young man... count me in! I didn't enjoy it as much as Morse, and the oddly calming, plodding theme music didn't quite live up to the standards of the Morse theme, but it was still set in Oxford, still dropped literary references all over the place, and still gave me some character angst. I was a fan.
But then, in 2013...
ENDEAVOUR. Inspector Endeavour Morse as a young Detective Constable in 1965. His first time back in Oxford since losing the love of his life and dropping out of university. His first time seeing that gorgeous red Jaguar that became so famous from the original Inspector Morse series. Beginning the series by telling everyone that he didn't drink, then later having his first beer and loving it. The first inklings of his becoming afraid of heights. Getting to know Strange, who later becomes his boss but always calls him "Matey." Getting to know Dr. Max DeBryn, who was the pathologist in the first seasons of Inspector Morse and always teased him about his aversion to dead bodies, but seemed to have a soft spot for him all the same. BUDDYSHIP THEREFROM. And, something that was cut out of the PBS episodes but was included on the DVDs, seeing how Morse developed the limp that was technically John Thaw's but couldn't be hidden and therefore became part of the Morse character.
Best of all, the moment at the end of the pilot episode when Endeavour was reflecting on his future, looked into the mirror of his boss' Mustang, and his eyes morphed from actor Shaun Evans' eyes to those of John Thaw RIGHT AS THAT BEAUTIFUL HAUNTING MORSE THEME SONG BEGAN TO PLAY.
Yes. YES. I am well and truly obsessed with Endeavour. While I wait for series 2 to start, I keep ordering the series 1 DVDs from my library and watching them over and over. I just can't get enough of this character! Is Morse the reason why I love intelligent, angsty characters in my TV shows? Perhaps. Perhaps. If so, I am forever indebted to him for that.
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