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The Daily Star, Oneonta, N.Y., Friday, August 18, 2017 4 By Jacqueline Spendlove TV Media W e certainly do love our British TV detec- tives. From "Sher- lock" to "Midsomer Mur- ders," "Father Brown" to "Grantchester," and "Broad- church" to "Wallander," Brit- ish crime shows prove just as wildly popular with audienc- es on this side of the Atlantic as they do with our British counterparts. One English sleuth in partic- ular is celebrating a significant anniversary on the screen this year. The fourth season of "En- deavour" marks 30 years on the screen for Det. Insp. Morse, who made his first appear- ance in 1987 in the epony- mous detective drama "In- spector Morse," played by John Thaw. In "Endeavour," we're given a look at a young- er, fresher Morse, and the "Masterpiece Mystery" offer- ing has found great success both here and across the pond. The season 4 premiere airs Sunday, Aug. 20, on PBS. "Endeavour" — the rather unfortunate first name of Insp. Morse — is a prequel to the long-running series that first introduced us to the character (and in which said first name is seldom uttered). It stars Shaun Evans ("Teachers") in the title role, and the character is decidedly less curmudgeon- ly than the man, as "Morse" fans know, he grows to be. Whereas in the original se- ries, Morse is an established, middle-aged detective, the 1960s-set "Endeavour" shows us a 20-something Morse just starting out in his career, at which he nonethe- less proves highly adept. The character's traits and person- ality are well established and recognized in "Inspector Morse" — brilliant, if more than a little prickly and sullen, with a fondness for English ale, classic cars and crossword puzzles. Evans gives us some of this in "Endeavour," but the series also shows us the younger Morse as a separate, softer entity. "This is a character who's pretty melancholy and who's in his mid-50s and is alone, drinks too much, is not a hap- py person," Evans said of the character in a Masterpiece Studio podcast. "And I know that's kind of a cliché for de- tectives, but there was some- thing about it that I thought, 'That's interesting.' How do you get this guy now to where he is then? And if we can start to see who this person is when he's in his mid-20s, then that's an interesting starting point, I thought ... what is there in your mid-20s that makes you who you are in your 50s?" Roger Allam ("The Thick of It") stars opposite Evans as Det. Chief Insp. Fred Thursday, Morse's colleague and men- tor. Other members of the Ox- fordshire Police Criminal In- vestigation Department in- clude Police Community Sup- port Officer Reginald Bright (Anton Lesser, "Game of Thrones), Det. Sgt. Jim Strange (Sean Rigby in his first main role) and Det. Sgt. Peter Jakes (Jack Laskey, "X Company). Dakota Blue Richards ("Skins") plays Woman Police Const. Shirley Trewlove — a somewhat uncommon sight as a young female constable in the '60s. While both Thaw and Evans paint an excellent picture of the ornery detective, it's Colin Dexter whom you can thank for the character. "Inspector Morse" is based on a series of books by Dexter, who penned 13 novels about Morse, as well as several novellas and short stories. The author won a number of awards for the books and, in 2000, was ap- pointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for ser- vices to literature. It's unsur- prising that his stories and characters, so popular on pa- per, have been a success on the screen as well. "Endeavour" isn't the first "Morse" spinoff. "Inspector Lewis," another "Masterpiece Mystery" series, is centered on Det. Insp. Robert Lewis (Kevin Whately, "The English Pa- tient," 1996) Morse's sergeant in the original series. It, too, was a huge hit for ITV and "Masterpiece," running for nine seasons and drawing mil- lions of viewers each week. "Endeavour's" four-epi- sode fourth season aired in January on ITV in the U.K. and, as has been the case with pre- vious seasons, the numbers speak for themselves. The sea- son averaged seven million viewers, enjoying a slight up- tick from season 3's average of 6.8 million. A longer fifth season of the drama is already in the works. As for Morse's pearl anni- versary on the screen, don't think the milestone is going unnoticed. Keep an eye out this season for tributes to the original inspector in the form of cameos and character ap- pearances. Thaw's daughter, Abigail Thaw ("I Want My Wife Back"), already has a regular role in the series as Dorothea Frazil, the editor of the Oxford Mail newspaper, but his wid- ow, Sheila Hancock ("The Boy in the Striped Pajamas," 2008), also appears this season in a guest role. Watch for an ap- pearance by James Laurenson ("Boney") as well, in a nod to the first-ever "Inspector Morse" episode, in which he played Tony Richards. Russell Lewis, "Endeav- our's" creator and a writer for "Morse," returns to script this season, so you can expect the storylines to be just as com- pelling as ever. Don't miss the return of the "Masterpiece Mystery" drama when "En- deavour" debuts its fourth season — a milestone one for the character of Endeavour Morse — Sunday, Aug. 20, on PBS. coverstory dakota Blue richards as seen in "Endeavour" 2017 marks 30 years on the screen for Endeavour Morse By adam thomlison TV Media Q: What has happened to "outlander"? It's been a long time since the last new episode. A: It's been so long that impatient fans have come up with a name for the long period since the end of season 2: The Droughtlander. However, the drought ends Sunday, Sept. 10, when the show returns on Starz. Star Caitriona Balfe ("Now You See Me," 2013), who plays Claire, admitted it's been too long, and she even played along with the joke. "The Droughtlander is real," she said to "E! News" this past summer. "It's been a while, and we're sorry to the fans that it took so long, but you know, we put a lot of care and effort into our show, and it just takes us a while to film it." Co-star Sam Heughan ("Doctors") chimed in to joke that he hopes the fans are still alive after the dry spell and will tune in when the show returns. They could afford to take the whole thing lightly, since they were speaking at Comic-Con in San Diego shortly after a sneak preview of the season 3 premiere was received well by attendees. That surely took some pressure off. The show has indeed been gone for quite a while — the last season ended in July 2016, more than a year ago. Q: As a fan of reruns of "The drew Carey Show," I'm curious: How many different openings did they do? A: That depends on whether you mean how many differ- ent opening sequences or opening songs, and either way it's not simple. There were three main opening songs. "Moon Over Par- ma," a song written by Robert McGuire and performed by Drew Carey himself, was the theme for the first season. It was replaced by The Vogues's "Five O'Clock World" for the second season, which was in turn replaced by "Cleveland Rocks," an Ian Hunter song performed by the pop group Presidents of the United States of America, for the third through seventh seasons. During the final two seasons, the show switched between all three songs but not the original recordings. The openings featured different renditions of the songs by various artists, including a cover of "Five O'Clock World" by the pop punk group Bowling for Soup (who were a big deal at the time) and a sort of rap-lounge version of "Moon Over Parma." And that's not even counting the unofficial fourth theme song, "Girlfriend in a Coma" by the Smiths. That one, a pop- ular pop punk song from the '80s, was the intro to the two sixth-season episodes in which Drew was — you guessed it — in a coma. If you're referring to the opening video sequences, rather than just the songs, it gets even more complicated. The show did have standard versions of each opening like a nor- mal show would, with clips from past episodes playing un- der the credits. However, it also mixed that up frequently, ei- ther with different clips or even weirder choices (see, for ex- ample, the intro that played in season 8, which featured a bunch of dated-looking video effects to make it look like the old "Dallas" credit sequence). Have a question? E-mail us at questions@tvtabloid.com. Please include your name and town. Personal replies will not be provided. hollywoodQ&a

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