Apollo

I hope that Morse and Thursday don't have to fight against Box every moment of every new episode. They are wise and can make him look good. He is a total ass who must have had some result somewhere, sometime, to get where he is. A promising physicist dies with his girlfriend in what appears to be a high speed car accident. The evidence, however, begins to show something suspicious about the crash. Also, there are people who are running around, frightened to death, over discovery of some secret, some relationships. Perhaps there are coincidences, but they play out so well. By the way, I was a kid when they were on and I hated that Thuderbird show. Still, the recreation of those puppets was astonishing.

Very hard to follow. Probably very ingenious but I wish they'd keep it a bit simpler -too many characters and confusing storyline 'whose csr/whose keys and oh wait- it was only half of the car! Needed to watch it twice and occasionally gowing back to recap.

I'll agree with reviewer Paul Scales on this. It is too complicated.

But I'd go further. The whole thing seems to be based on a rather implausible series of events relating to the history of the car central to the story going back several years. Anybody who has watched detective shows will have heard someone at one point say something like "I don't believe in coincidences". Well, nobody says that in this episode but they wouldn't dare as the entire complicated chained plot line is based on one coincidence after the other with much of that not being revealed until the end. The Eddy Nero connection with the car towards the end (glossed over really quickly) was the final straw as far as I was concerned.

My wife and I discussed this episode after viewing it and even the following day after reflecting on it a bit and decided in the end that, really, much of this simply doesn't make a lot of sense.

Just one example: at one point DCI Box tells Morse and Thursday to "leave it to me" and clearly removes them from any more involvement in the case. And yet in the next scene, there the two of them are still conducting inquiries. We though, "gee, they're really going to be in trouble when Box finds out" Yet a few scenes later it seems that Box has absolutely no problem with Morse and Thursday are still investigating and implicitly they have his approval.

Time and time again Box tells Morse to keep out of it. Time and time again Morse ignores him. In any real life situation, Morse would have been dismissed, transferred or up on disciplinary charges for the way he was ignoring explicit orders. But not in Oxford.

As to the use of coincidences.... last week we had the implausible coincidence of Morse stumbling across the bodies of not one but two missing people in two quite different places. A little far fetched perhaps?

Sorry, but this is one of the poorest episodes in my recollection.

As always, well acted but the writers need to up their game and not just coast on acting and directing alone.

I will say that I think "Endeavour" is, overall, the best program on TV right now, and I like the attempt to create a real puzzle mystery, TV for thinkers. However, there is a difference between complex and convoluted, and I think this episode was the latter. There was too much going on, too many incidents, too much "landscape" and it reminded me of that wonderful quote from Sherlock Holmes that a man's failed attempt to fabricate a crime - failed because he added one too many details - lacked the supreme gift of the artist, which was the knowledge of when to stop. But on the plus side, all of the actors are good, and in this and the previous episode, Anton Lesser (Bright) was just pitch perfect.

The writing, directing and acting were sub-par. This episode had too many characters and the characters were not even likeable in the least. I didn't care who did what or how anyone died. I just wanted this to be over. Colin Dexter should be turning over in his grave. Skip this one - you'll be glad you did!