Everything To Remember About 'Endeavour' Ahead of Season 8
The prequel spinoff of Inspector Morse, Endeavour, will end with Season 9, which airs later this year in the U.K. and probably next year on PBS. Series creator Russell Lewis said at the time that the show had a ten-year plan, and though it will only be nine seasons when the show ends, this is the 10th anniversary of the program's debut, which began with the 2012 TV movie. But due to the delays from shutdowns and lockdowns, here in America, we're just now getting Season 8, two years after Season 7 aired in the summer of 2020. Let's rewind to go over where the series left off.
Endeavour's initial story was set in 1965, with Morse (Shaun Evans) helping on a double murder case in Oxford, where he was a student before becoming an officer. That brought him a transfer to Oxford City Police's Cowley Police Station, where he's been the bagman to Detective Fred Thursday (Roger Allam), rising to Detective Sargent to Thursday's Detective Chief Inspector. Along the way, Thursday's wife Winnie (Caroline O'Neill) semi-adopted Morse as an extra son, and their daughter Joan Thursday (Sarah Vickers) has been his long-harbored crush. Though Morse was pricky and paranoid, he impressed Police Chief Superintendent Reginald Bright (Anton Lesser) and became fast friends with pathologist Dr. Max DeBryn (James Bradshaw).
Season 6 brought major upheaval when Oxford's branch was merged with Thames Valley Constabulary as part of reconfiguring the policing charter. Bright was put out to pasture, Thursday demoted, and with no protection, Morse, who was never very good at politics, wound up busted down to a PC, while his fellow DS, Jim Strange (Sean Rigby), was promoted up. With Thursday struggling for money over losing the family savings, Strange took it upon himself to rectify the situation, playing internal politics and righting the ship by the end of the slightly expanded season, putting everyone back in their original positions of authority by season's end. Also, Morse asked Joan out and was turned down.
