Shaun Evans is back in Endeavour as the detective drama returns for a fifth season
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Endeavour Morse may have finally got his hard-won promotion, just don’t expect him to crack any more smiles than usual. Five series in, and the Oxford copper has perfected his hardest glare, devastating put-downs and general disinterest in enjoying all the Swinging Sixties has to offer.
In short, he’s just like the gruff TV detective he will become in the later Morse series.
The scene has shifted to 1968 and episode one sees Detective Sergeant Endeavour (Shaun Evans) join the dots between the murder of an Oxford don, a bare-knuckle fighter and a flame-haired exotic dancer.
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His new job means he’s no longer under the wing of DCI Fred Thursday (Roger Allam). And he has his own constable to mentor, George Fancy. He gives the lad short shrift for his leery attitude to WPC Trewlove (Dakota Blue Richards). He also dismissively informs him: ‘I don’t go in for small talk. Or first names.’ (We didn’t find out the Christian name of John Thaw’s Morse until the 11th series of Morse).
This attitude extends to the detective’s reaction to a flirtatious working girl: ‘Save it for your clients, I’m immune.’
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However, Joan Thursday (Sara Vickers) is back, and still shaken after the events of last year, which saw Endeavour’s ill-fated proposal to his boss’s daughter.
‘Joan Thursday is still part of the story,’ says Shaun Evans, but reveals that Endeavour may have other dalliances. ‘There’s a little bit of action,’ reveals Shaun.
‘Not before time, if you ask me!’
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This series is double the usual run, at six feature-length films. This means there’s more room for running plots involving the return of Thursday’s estranged brother (played by Phil Daniels), the possibility that he’ll retire and the attempt to bring down local crime boss, Eddie Nero (Mark Arden).
And as ever real historical events pop up: most interestingly, the merger of Oxford City Police into Thames Valley Constabulary. Will Endeavour lose his views of Oxford University’s dreaming spires to be banished to a new divisional HQ – with computers?
Endeavour is on Sun 8pm ITV