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- British crime drama series Endeavour is the prequel to the long-running series Inspector Morse.
- Shaun Evans plays young Endeavour Morse at the beginning of his career as a detective constable.
- In this Q&A, Shaun talks about what it was like returning to film the new season, what viewers can expect from the three episodes, and whether this is the last season.
Shaun Evans reprises his role as DS Endeavour Morse, alongside Roger Allam as DCI Fred Thursday, for three new compelling cases written and created by Russell Lewis.
South Africans can stream Endeavour season 8 now on BritBox. The British crime drama is the prequel to the long-running series Inspector Morse.
Filmed on location in Oxford, the strong ensemble cast has reunited with Shaun and Roger for the new season, which includes Anton Lesser (Game of Thrones), who returns as CS Reginald Bright, and Sean Rigby (Gunpowder) as DS Jim Strange, James Bradshaw (Close to The Enemy) as Dr Max DeBryn, Abigail Thaw (I Want My Wife Back) as Dorothea Frazil, Caroline O'Neill (Last Tango In Halifax) as Win Thursday, and Sara Vickers (Watchmen) as Joan Thursday.
The year 1971 has just begun, and any hope of light duties quickly vanishes as the team, still reeling from the past year's events, is summoned to investigate the most challenging cases so far.
Endeavour's struggle with his inner demons reaches fever pitch, exacerbated by love, loss and guilt weighing on his mind. All the while, the team find themselves right back in the thick of it as crime in Oxford takes on a scale bigger than ever before.
In this Q&A, Shaun talks about what it was like returning to film the new season, what viewers can expect from the three episodes, and whether this is the last season.
After a long delay due to the pandemic, what was it like to turn up for work on the first day of filming for season eight?
"It was a relief to finally start filming. I had the good fortune of doing another job in the interim, which had started prior to Covid, and then we returned to finish it. You're just lucky to be out working and to have a legitimate reason to leave the house and to be mixing with people. To be able to do your work, first and foremost. I was very grateful for that.
"In terms of returning to Endeavour, it was great to be back. We have all known each other for such a long time, both the cast and the crew. So, it was good to get back and make sure everyone was okay. And for everyone to be doing their work."
Where do we return to the Endeavour story?
"Violetta died at the end of the last series, which was New Year's Eve going into 1971. This new series begins two months later, and Morse is suffering. When we pick Endeavour up in February 1971, he is drinking too much, not coming into work, phoning in sick quite a bit. That's what we see over the course of the whole season. That is slowly getting worse.
"But a drinking problem is only a manifestation of something else. It's not just the booze. It's everything. Then finding a release in booze. It's too easy to explain something away as alcoholism. That's not what we were reaching for with it. It's actually about not being able to cope with life on life's terms. It is incredibly complicated.
"I do think there is something really interesting in where we find him and how his misery manifests. There was more of a drinking culture then, so it was much more acceptable. You could definitely hide it in plain sight.
"The challenging thing is always to try and take Endeavour to a new place, but without changing it completely from what we've done before."
How would you describe the current relationship between Endeavour and Joan?
"If you look over the course of the work we've done, when Joan was in her hour of need a couple of years ago, she came to Endeavour with a black eye. He gave her some money and asked her to marry him. She said no, or didn't take him seriously. It was the wrong time. Then she left. This time around, when Endeavour was going to see Violetta at the end of the last season, it was Joan that he wrote a letter to. So, in his hour of need, it's the same.
"Now where we meet them at this point in the new series, because he's made himself so vulnerable in the previous season, there's a certain reluctance to be as open. There is more of a protective quality, a shield, that has grown over.
"Joan has seen Endeavour at his worst a couple of times now. There's a choice to either continue on that path and go deeper. Or to feel embarrassed. You don't want that person to keep seeing you at your lowest ebb. And so, you have a defence mechanism; you push them away, you antagonise them and put the focus on them. But only because he's in so much pain.
"There is a balance because you're making a TV show. The balance comes with the trade-off between the detective story and all of those beautiful, lovely character elements. We all aspire to make them as truthful and as relatable and recognisable as possible. Then you put it against crime stories which just by their very nature have to be incredibly complicated."
Is there more foreshadowing of events to come in the first episode?
"We have the benefit of hindsight. It should feel a sort of foreshadowing or foreboding of future events. Nothing is ever throwaway in these scripts. Even a mention of a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in the second story. It's from these idealistic and beautiful beginnings that sometimes something terrible can happen."
Can you tell us about Endeavour's surprise visitor?
"We first met his stepmother Gwen at the very beginning when Morse's dad died. Now she has fallen on slightly harder times, and so she comes to stay for a few days. We then learn a little bit more about Endeavour's background. It's all connected. None of it is separate. Again, it's one of the beauties of telling something long-form. You don't have to hit it over the head. It's all related. All part of the same whole. They are all different sides of the same thing. What makes him who he is."
Having now matched the 33 episodes of Inspector Morse, there has been speculation this may be the final series of Endeavour. Will there be another one?
"That's a decision for the whole team. As we have always done, we need to finish this series, take a look at them, take a view over what was done well, if there's still a story to tell and if we all still want to tell it. So, we'll see.
"My hope is that by the end of episode three, we have really managed to drill down over the course of these three episodes into something interesting. It will also be interesting to see when they're all put together and when they go out. What the response is like. To be honest, we will know then where we are with it."
How does it feel to have reached the same number of episodes as Inspector Morse?
"It's poignant. But these things are as important as you make them. In the original series, I think John Thaw called it, and it was like, 'This is enough now.' I've still not watched Inspector Morse.
"Maybe I'll watch them when we're all done. I'm still only focused on my own work and on the work we're all trying to do together. It's important in one respect, but it's arbitrary in another respect to me.
"The fact I haven't watched Inspector Morse, there's nothing disparaging or dismissive in that. We have come so far now on all of our own journeys with it that it just still doesn't feel right to watch it. You have to approach it from your entry points rather than somebody else's.
"It's very clear to me in my mind what we're trying to achieve, and it was when I read the first script and then read the books. So, staying true to my own vision of it was important.
"From an outside point of view, it's amazing the audience is still there. And from an internal point of view, it's incredible that we, as a team, are still trying to push it as much as possible, so each episode does feel different from the one that's come before and has its own specific vibe and tone to them. It's been an extraordinary experience in my life, without a shadow of a doubt."
