Pilot

I've never seen the show. All I know is that it's a long running police show in Britain. So I have no preconceived notion. The pace is a little slow. The British accent is a little thick. The production is good. The story is pretty good. Murder mystery plus corruption hits all the right notes for a cop show. What I like the most however is the Morse character.

Far too often, young police is often shown as fearless. Morse isn't always right. The one scene that impressed me most was when the sleazy suspect actually threaten and backed Morse down. You see the stunned fear on his face that's almost never happens to a lead in a cop show. He's a realistic character. I can see great potential for the character.

This is possibly one of the best new series in the last 20 years. As a great Morse fan I was apprehensive but this is superb quality viewing. The cameo appearance of John Thaws daughter Abigail is very touching as is the finale. More please and the new portrayal of Morse is captivating.

No one could ever replace John Thaw but this is an excellent portrayal.

There are some discrepancies as regards the props in relation to the period but they now detract from the quality of the script or the acting.

Look out for his first meeting with Max and the base of his later idiosyncrasies . Thank you.

I can add nothing new to the prior ten-star glowing reviews of the surprisingly satisfying young Endeavor Morse except to say that I am hanging on the edge of my seat hoping that this evolves into a series. I thought Shaun Evans showed amazing talent in his subtle and believable portrayal of young Morse. His sensitivity and depth and solitude were a fine introduction to the Morse he would become later, before life made him more impatient and sarcastic. The rest of the cast all gave stellar performances....there wasn't one character that I felt was a reach in any way. The connections to his Oxford past brought the original Morse series come full circle for me. Beautifully done! More, please!

What a great prequel/tribute to Inspector Morse. Shaun Evans played a young Morse brilliantly, I'm sure John Thaw would have been impressed and proud to see the character's introduction executed with the same style and effort as the series. Having seen all of the original series' - remembering most, I really appreciated seeing references to Morse's passions and how they were introduced in the story. Though the character is complicated, smart and very dedicated, the simple love of the Jaguar (in particular the red Jaguar on the forecourt) was all that was needed to cement the character ;) Not that there weren't other, more sound references, however, that car was the one thing that said 'Morse' to me.. I really hope that this isn't a one-off!

ITV took a very definite risk with this show, the follow up series Lewis had a stability in Kevin Whately, which I suppose gave viewers a link to the great show. Whereas with Endeavour the challenge was creating the DNA from the Morse show, the biggest question had to be 'Is Shaun Evans Morse?' The answer to that question is a resounding yes, watching Shaun I believe one hundred percent that he is Morse.

In this Pilot episode we see the very beginning of Morse's career, put into the team of Fred Thursday at a very junior level, it isn't long before the genius of Morse is recognised, and it's his attention to deal and ability to look beyond what's in front of him that helps solve the case of a missing fifteen year old girl.

Beautiful music combined with the great camera work and production values make this a very high quality drama, the story is intriguing, and the performances are excellent, most notably from the two lead actors.

They took a gamble, and boy has it paid off. 9/10