Light On Dark Water

Endeavour

I've been meaning to recommend this: the BBC series about the early career of the detective we know and love as Inspector Morse from the series starring John Thaw in the late '80s and through the '90s. This is the second season, and there's only one episode left, so it's almost not worthwhile for me to mention it now. But I'm doing so in case there's anyone who liked the old series and hasn't given this a try.

"Endeavour," as fans know, is Morse's first name, which he detests. The show does a pretty good job of presenting young Morse as a believable version of old Morse. There are lots of nice bits for those who know the old series, showing the development of certain familiar Morse quirks–surprisingly, in the beginning he doesn't drink at all. But more than that, it's a good series of mysteries in itself, and would be even if you'd never heard of the others. Morse is a subordinate to Chief Inspector Fred Thursday, who is a strong character in his own right. The acting is excellent throughout, as we expect from the BBC. Ok, the plots are sometimes a bit far-fetched, but you have to overlook a certain amount of that in most mysteries. 

The first episode of season 1 is available on Netflix, but for some reason the others aren't. They are on Amazon, which makes me worry for the future of Netflix. The most recent episode, "Sway", is still available for online viewing ("for a limited time"). And there's one more coming this Sunday. Each episode stands on its own, and you'll miss very little that's essential by watching them out of order. More information at PBS.

Maclin Horton

111 responses to “Endeavour”

  1. Art Deco

    Actually ‘far-fetched’ careers into ‘absurd’ in some episodes, even allowing for the sociologically bizarre aspect of detective serials (found as much as anyplace in the Midsommer series, where you have small towns and rural zones in the English West Country with homicide rates like inner-city slums and provincial bourgeois who take to serial killing in late middle age).
    I have to disagree with you on one point. The young Morse is a pallid and tedious character. The center of things is Thursday. They’ve overdone the short-comings of Thursdays’ superior and have yet to tackle how it was that Strange came to be promoted within the ranks ahead of Morse in later years.
    One difference from the earlier serial (and Lewis) has been a reduction in emphasis on the University as a setting. There are supporting characters and (here and there) antagonists from the University, but the campus is not the focus. There are about three dozen residential colleges at Oxford and Kevin Whately said they had done episodes set on all but three in the course of the other series.

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  2. Mac

    I wouldn’t argue with “absurd” re some of the plots, especially the rabbit-out-of-the-hat quality of some of the last-second solutions. The sociologically bizarre aspect you just have to live with. Miss Marple sort of set the pattern for that early.
    I do disagree about young Morse–I think he’s excellent, though Thursday does come close to stealing the show, especially in the most recent episode. I had completely forgotten that Strange has a fine career ahead of him. I don’t think I paid that much attention to him in the older series. I think young Max the pathologist is very fine.
    I noticed that about the Oxford setting, too. The last episode is an instance–I think the only University-connected character was the one prof whose wife was murdered. Maybe they feel like they’ve exhausted that milieu.

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  3. Marianne

    I like Fred Thursday most of all; he’s a rock. The best thing about the series, to me, is that it’s far removed from irony, unlike Midsomer Murders, and doesn’t dwell on gruesomeness, also unlike Midsomer and most other detective shows on TV now.

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  4. Louise

    “They are on Amazon, which makes me worry for the future of Netflix.”
    Oh no. I hope nothing bad happens to Netflix – I can’t stand Amazon.
    “allowing for the sociologically bizarre aspect of detective serials (found as much as anyplace in the Midsommer series, where you have small towns and rural zones in the English West Country with homicide rates like inner-city slums and provincial bourgeois who take to serial killing in late middle age)”
    Heh! Midsomer is a very dangerous place to live. Just as well it’s fictional. I do love that programme though 🙂

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  5. Mac

    I’ve seen a few of the Midsomer Murders series and don’t recall them being very gruesome, although they were on the sordid side. I’m sure I’ll eventually watch the whole series.
    That’s a good point about the lack of irony. So far there’s been very little of political correctness. I did wonder if Morse having a romance with a black woman was realistic for the times or not. She’s a charming character, but we all know the romance is doomed. I really liked that dark-haired girl he had a thing with in the first season.
    Re Amazon, I really would rather not continue to assist their plan for world domination, but dang, it’s so easy to click on a book or something that you want to buy.

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  6. Louise

    There are times – sadly – when only Amazon will do.
    Midsomer is normally not too gruesome, but yes, definitely sordid. Thankfully the main characters are pretty normal folk.

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  7. janet

    I’m so glad you posted this. I saw the first episode of Endeavor and thought it was the only one. I really enjoyed that one. I think the Mme. Butterfly was a pretty good giveaway of the end though.
    AMDG

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  8. Mac

    If you liked that, you’ll probably like the others. If anything, I think the new season (4 episodes) may be better overall than the first. MB may have been a giveaway for you but it certainly wasn’t for me–that was a big surprise.

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  9. Art Deco

    I did wonder if Morse having a romance with a black woman was realistic for the times or not. She’s a charming character, but we all know the romance is doomed. I really liked that dark-haired girl he had a thing with in the first season.
    You were around in 1966. Does it seem realistic to you? In the U.S. at the time, the median age at 1st marriage for women was shy of 22. It may have been a shade higher in Britain, but I doubt the situation was radically different. As late as 1960, the share of children born out of wedlock in the U.S. was 3% (and abortion was unsafe, illegal, and rare); again, I do not imagine the situation was different in Britain. Bourgeois late 20-somethings rutting on each other certainly happened here or there, but I suspect it was strongly atypical. The Morse character never married; among his cohort, that was characteristic of about 5% of the total, and a large share of them had esoteric issues.
    E.R. Braithwaite’s (fictionalized) account of life in Britain ca. 1950 does not shed much light. Braithwaite’s account had it that British employers were very resistant to hiring black immigrants for skilled or salaried positions and that the distinction between British and American racial attitudes at the time (in his experience) was that the British tended to be less voluble and more evasive. I believe Braithwaite did marry an English girl. By some accounts, he is still alive, though ancient.

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  10. Mac

    I lived in Alabama, so my experience sheds no light on what might have been the case in the very different environment of Britain. In my limited experience the British were pretty enthusiastic in condemning the American South, but, as with the rest of the U.S., that doesn’t really say much about the way they really thought and behaved.
    Just speculating, I can easily imagine that an inter-racial romance in 1966 England would not have been likely to set off Klan-style condemnation, but would have raised eyebrows, and probably not happened very often. Of course there were far fewer black people there, too, compared to England now and the U.S. then.

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  11. Robert Gotcher

    I never link to Amazon on my blog when I recommend a book. I link to the publisher, or perhaps to a library catalogue.

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  12. Art Deco

    I lived in Alabama, so my experience sheds no light on what might have been the case in the very different environment of Britain.
    I was astonished to discover, ca. 1990, that the illegitimacy rates of most occidental countries were passably similar.
    As for Britain, real income levels in 1966 were fairly similar to those of Alabama in that era. If you deduct greater London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, and Liverpool, you’ve removed all the loci more populous than Birmingham, Ala (and about a third of the British population). Oxford, England is a modest tier 3 city not much larger than Tuscaloosa. The writer John Derbyshire said tootling around Alabama by car that the landscape reminded him of parts of England (Derbyshire grew up in the English Midlands, right near where they fade into East Anglia).
    The big differences between provincial England at that time which are measurable and observable would be crime rates, race relations, settlement patterns and density levels, elements of mass entertainment and popular culture, and, of course manners (which were intertwined with race relations big time).
    I imagine the rejection of miscegenation did not have the hard edge to it that it did in Alabama (Braithwaite said his father-in-law advised him that their marriage would be injudicious and left it at that). What about the decadence? How did unmarried 25 year olds interact in Tuscaloosa and in Oxford in 1966?

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  13. Marianne

    What about the decadence? How did unmarried 25 year olds interact in Tuscaloosa and in Oxford in 1966?
    I don’t know how much of a barometer re sexual mores Philip Larkin was, but here’s his “Annus Mirabilis”:
    Sexual intercourse began
    In nineteen sixty-three
    (which was rather late for me) –
    Between the end of the Chatterley ban
    And the Beatles’ first LP.
    Up to then there’d only been
    A sort of bargaining,
    A wrangle for the ring,
    A shame that started at sixteen
    And spread to everything.
    Then all at once the quarrel sank:
    Everyone felt the same,
    And every life became
    A brilliant breaking of the bank,
    A quite unlosable game.
    So life was never better than
    In nineteen sixty-three
    (Though just too late for me) –
    Between the end of the Chatterley ban
    And the Beatles’ first LP.

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  14. Janet

    Re the romance with the black woman in 1966 England, did you see “To Sir with Love?” That was 1967. I would say from that that it was unlikely.
    AMDG

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  15. Mac

    Btw, my original remark was in reference entirely to the interracial aspect of the affair, not to the sexual activity. I didn’t have any trouble believing the latter, although the times for a non-bohemian like Morse were less profligate than they were soon to become.
    I had a conversation recently with a friend in his 30s who had trouble believing me when I said there really was a big change in sexual mores between roughly the beginning and end of the 1960s. He seemed to think it had always been the way it was when he was in college in the ’90s, just maybe not as blatant. But there really was a change.
    I thought that Larkin poem was funny when I first read it when the book came out back in the ’70s. Over the years, it’s come to seem depressing and then more depressing. Though not by any means the most depressing thing he ever wrote.

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  16. Grumpy

    when we first moved back to England in 1970 there was a situation comedy on TV called ‘Love Thy Neighbour’. It was about a white couple’s reaction to a black couple living next door to them. Of course it was on the side of the black couple and it was mocking the horror of the white couple, but it simply would not be shown today.

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  17. Grumpy

    Because even the humour took for granted that it was a very funny situation have blacks and whites living cheek by jowel.
    I’ve never watched Morse – I think not once. I have watched a few Midsommers, but it never took me. I loved Foyle’s War, but the absurdity of the plots does sometimes, just, bore me. My stepfather lives in Hastings and it is thrilling to see the old town.

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  18. janet

    Maclin, I’m wondering if that is the same friend in his 30s that I have had that same discussion with several times. I think it would have been equally difficult for us to believe when we were in our twenties that it would be like this. Of course, the sexual revolution was going on, but who would have imagined this tedious glut of 24/7 sensuality. I mean, they are almost succeeding in making sex boring.
    AMDG

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  19. Art Deco

    Re the romance with the black woman in 1966 England, did you see “To Sir with Love?” That was 1967. I would say from that that it was unlikely.
    Again, E.R. Braithwaite’s novella (a fictionalized memoir), set just after the war and during the early years of ‘secondary modern’ schooling. Not sure how much to credit it. Braithwaite’s protagonist (an engineer) had difficulty finding work, not difficulty with other teachers, or with his fiancee’s parents. He had trouble with his students, but it was mostly their manners.

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  20. Art Deco

    He seemed to think it had always been the way it was when he was in college in the ’90s, maybe not as blatant. But there really was a change.
    Facepalm.
    I suspect the War and the generality of military service for unmarried men born between 1904 and 1939 had an effect. I do wonder if the tendency to sort women into categories that you’d consider for courting and those you sought to shag was much more local to my father’s contemporaries than is commonly acknowledged. One of my mother’s friends offered that the signature of her contemporaries was “we were all doing the same things at the same time”. Early marriage, 3-4 children &c. My mother belonged for decades to a club that had about twenty members and met monthly. All but about two married in their early 20s and all but one had children. One married in her late 20s and was employed as a salaried technician for all but about four years during the period running from 1956 to 1986, first for General Electric and then the University of Rochester. She never really said what the deal was for working girls ca. 1960 (when she was 26 years old). She separated from her husband in 1972 and I’m fairly sure there was no one from that time until her death (not an uncommon fate for middle-aged divorcees).
    One contemporary of this crew gave me a precis of her dealings with her husband’s paramours in that era. She’d collar them and give them a dressing down in some public place (a skeet field in one case, a department store in another). She said the embarrassment would do the trick. It stopped working around about 1968.

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  21. Mac

    “It stopped working around about 1968.”
    Ha. What a vast social shift is behind that observation.
    This is all very interesting, and my lack of response doesn’t indicate lack of interest. Sorry I’m not participating more, but I’m being kept very busy, even at night.

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  22. Rob G

    As a huge Morse fan (I’ve watched the entire series twice, and own it on DVD), I’d have to say that the draw for me is based just as much on the characters as on the stories. Thaw and Whately are so good in their roles, and Morse is such a great character, that to me that makes up for the odd faulty plot line.

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  23. Janet

    I only started watching Morse about a year before it ended. I always meant to watch them from the beginning, and now we have started doing that. I guess it will keep us busy for a long time.
    AMDG

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  24. Rob G

    bookfinder.com includes a lot of alternatives to Amazon, many of them at lower prices, esp. if you’re looking for used books.

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  25. Mac

    I don’t know if I saw all the Morse episodes back when they were on tv or not. Unlikely, I guess. We’ve started watching one occasionally, too, starting with the first. They are very good. And it’s been so long since I saw them that I don’t remember any details.

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  26. Louise

    “I mean, they are almost succeeding in making sex boring.”
    I think they have succeeded.
    “I had a conversation recently with a friend in his 30s who had trouble believing me when I said there really was a big change in sexual mores between roughly the beginning and end of the 1960s. He seemed to think it had always been the way it was when he was in college in the ’90s, just maybe not as blatant. But there really was a change.”
    That’s tragic. Tragic that he doesn’t realise it was actually different. I know it was different b/c I spent a lot of time listening to my elders reminisce in general (not discussing sexual matters per se) and it was just a very different vibe.
    I saw something similar with no fault divorce (sorry to bring up this tedious topic again). I started school in 1975 – the year no fault divorce was legislated in Oz – and at that time most of the kids were from intact families. Only two had divorced parents that I knew of – in a class of about 30-35.
    By 1987 (my final year in school) there had been a few more casualties. In the late 80’s and early 90’s there was a positive explosion of divorce amongst our circle of friends and acquaintances. All 3 of my grandparent’s children (born in the 40’s) had divorced or separated by 1989. So tragic.
    And the other seismic shift has been with smoking. In the 70’s it seemed like everyone over 21 (or maybe 16!) smoked at least socially. Most had a full addiction. That changed in about two decades?
    I have this marvelous home made movie of my parents’ wedding – entirely after the Mass as I doubt filming was permitted in the Church. Everyone is standing around outside in their Sunday best – the ladies in hats and gloves, but mostly in skirts or dresses to knee length. There they all are drinking and smoking all over the place. I think it’s hilarious!

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  27. Rob G

    Currently watching ‘Homicide: Life on the Street,’ which was a sort of network TV precursor of ‘The Wire,’ with some of the same folks involved. I’m up to the end of season five. Very, very good.
    But I’ve taken a break at the end of this season of ‘Homicide’ to watch a UK series recommended by a friend, ‘Broadchurch.’ I’m only two episodes in but so far it’s excellent. He has also recommended one called ‘Line of Duty.’

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  28. Mac

    Yes, you’ve mentioned Homicide before, and I’ve been meaning to put it on my Netflix list. If it’s not already there. By the way, I’ve watched several episodes of Luther, which you also recommended. It is good, though to my taste not as good as some others in this line. It’s a little too dark for my wife’s taste–that running subplot with the female psycho–but I’m sure I will eventually watch it all.
    At the moment we are three episodes into a four-episode series called Hidden, which is pretty gripping. We happened across it semi-accidentally, looking for something that was no more than an hour long. A lawyer with some bad stuff in his past trying to dig into that and finding that it’s connected with a political conspiracy to take over the U.K. Not real believable but an effective thriller.

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  29. Mac

    I can’t believe they ended Endeavour with all that stuff unresolved. They better be working on another season.

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  30. Art Deco

    That’s less jarring than the problems with the plot and characterization. Too many strands of spaghetti.

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  31. Mac

    Can’t argue you with you on those points, sadly. But I still find it enjoyable.

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  32. Rob G

    Re: Luther, I think it’s the performances, esp. Elba’s, that really put the thing over the top. The plots, while interesting, are not anything extraordinary, I’d say. But Elba is just so good, and Luther such an interesting character…
    I’ve seen Hidden at the library and have been tempted to give it a go. This Broadchurch that I’m currently watching is outstanding all the way around.

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  33. Mac

    Elba is a really fine actor. And I’m glad to see there is life after Stringer Bell.
    Hidden is just a pretty good thriller, but on those terms worthwhile. One of the major implausible things was the Evil Rich Guy constantly communicating directly with his hired guns by cell phone and in person. Evil Rich Guys are probably smarter than that.

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  34. Art Deco

    Warning: Contains Spoilers
    But I still find it enjoyable.
    Cannot argue with you there, but at the end we were screwing up our brow trying to figure out just who he had been arrested for killing and what the man’s role in the whole mess was. (Evidently there had been a corrupt police investigation in 1955 but which of the four police officers involved did what or why was never answered). The secretary to the dispatched local pol appearing out of nowhere and curing the bad cop with a dose of lead was another jarring and arbitrary moment (and why had she been working for the skeezy bastard all those years if he’d molested her?). That a youngster on the periphery of this chum circle just happens to work in Morse’s office is another plot device. (Then it hits you that Oxfordshire then and now likely does not have a dozen homicides in a year and four of them and two attempts occur in this sequence of events).

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  35. Mac

    I just added a spoiler warning to your comment.
    But yeah. Ignoring the frequency of homicides as coming with the territory, all the things you mention were just a mess. I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one who couldn’t figure out who the last murder victim even was, let alone why the identity of the supposed murderer was supposed to be plausible.
    The secretary’s sudden snap was rather lamely justified as a sudden resurgence of repressed memory, I think.

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  36. Marianne

    Imperfect as it is, it’s still an awfully good show. And we’re lucky it was even made because Morse’s creator, Colin Dexter, was so set against anyone other than John Thaw playing Morse that he’s got a clause in his will banning anyone else from doing the part.
    That caused a problem for Endeavour’s producer, who says it took four years to persuade Dexter to back the new show:
    “I convinced him, saying the clause in his will wasn’t because he was worried about someone playing a 27-year-old Morse; he just didn’t want anyone competing with John Thaw,” she said. “He believes John was perfect for the part.”
    More here.

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  37. Paul

    Oxfordshire then and now likely does not have a dozen homicides in a year
    I’ve actually met the real-life Thames Valley Policeman responsible for homicide in Oxford and surroundings a couple of times in pubs and once at a christening (he went to school with someone I was at college with), and I can’t remember an exact figure but I think even a dozen would be a considerable over-estimate. And what criminal deaths do occur are primarily muggings and drunken fights running out of hand.

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  38. Mac

    In contrast, Mobile, Alabama, has a population roughly 25% greater than that of Oxford, but a homicide rate of two to three dozen per year.

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  39. Mac

    That’s fascinating, Marianne. Thanks. I somehow had the idea that he was dead (mixing up author and actor, maybe?). I’m inclined to agree with Dexter about any further portrayals of the mature Morse.
    I’ve been trying to decide whether I can envision Endeavour being Morse twenty years later. Can’t quite do it. If Endeavour goes on for very long they’ll need to show him becoming a more forceful person.

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  40. janet

    Oh man. Memphis is something over 3 times as big as Mobile and had 150 homocides last year.
    AMDG

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  41. Paul

    Years ago I saw a systematic comparison of crime rates for London and New York, and the only real differences were that you were much more likely to be burgled in London and much more likely to be shot in New York. Every other category was surprisingly equal.

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  42. Mac

    I think I’ve read that Memphis has one of the highest murder rates in the country.
    I read something along those lines, too, Paul. In fact I think London has actually passed NY and other American cities in overall crime, though we’re still well ahead of most European countries in gun violence. Naturally.

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  43. Rob G

    Finished watching Broadchurch last night, and I’ve got to say that it’s one of the best mini-series I’ve ever seen, bar none. Just absolutely brilliant all the way around. And a good thing is, it’s not particularly dark, as these things sometimes tend to be. It’s very humane, and quite moving in spots. Not to be missed.
    In case you’ve not heard of it, it’s a UK series in 8 parts about the murder of a little boy in a small English coastal tourist town. Besides the mystery element of the plot, there are also lines involving the effect of the death on the families involved and on various other townspeople, the new attention paid to the town by the media, and surprisingly, the role of the church and the vicar’s attempt to support and unify the town during the tragedy.

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  44. Grumpy

    The Lonely Revolution
    http://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/hearts-restless

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  45. Art Deco

    In contrast, Mobile, Alabama, has a population roughly 25% greater than that of Oxford, but a homicide rate of two to three dozen per year.
    In examining homicide statistics in the U.S., you have to take into account practices regarding municipal annexation which emerged in the 1920s and attempt to find the numbers for all components of the metropolitan settlement. Greater Detroit has a homicide rate of about 13 per 100,000. In the core city, it’s 48 per 100,000, but the core city comprehends 18% of the total settlement and as we speak consists of little more than slums. IIRC, statewide means in Mississippi and Louisiana are somewhere near the metropolitan Detroit figure.
    If you’re looking at the rate for metropolitan settlements as a whole, I think Memphis or New Orleans might be the champ among settlements over 650,000. Detroit and St. Louis would be competitors.

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  46. Art Deco

    It would appear that Mobile and seven adjacent suburbs have a homicide rate which bounces around 15 per 100,000. That’s quite high. It’s around 8 per 100,000 where I grew up. In the nine counties in Downstate New York, it’s below 5 per 100,000.

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  47. Mac

    Ok, Rob, I just put Broadchurch on my Netflix queue.
    Re Mobile and its crime: what’s worse, in one respect, or better, in another, is that most of those homicides take place in largely black areas and are mostly young black men shooting other young black men. The same old sad story. It’s only “better” in the sense that the high overall rate doesn’t truly reflect the risk to the average middle-class person.
    And I think that’s true of American crime stats overall. If you could take that specific syndrome out of the picture, I don’t think our crime rate is nearly as much higher than the UK’s as the overall numbers make it appear.

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  48. Mac

    Just read that review, Grumpy. Sounds worth seeing. Looks worth seeing, too–here’s a direct link to the trailer:
    http://everlastinghills.org/trailer/
    I’m currently reading Gregg Allman’s autobiography and the contrast with what Esolen says really strikes me. Sex is absolutely pure hedonism for GA, at least at this fairly early point in the story (just before the formation of the ABB), and I sort of doubt it’s going to change much.

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  49. Rob G

    “Rob, I just put Broadchurch on my Netflix queue”
    Trust me, you won’t regret it.

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  50. Art Deco

    Doing some interpolating and making some educated guesses, I’d wager your slum neighborhoods have a population of about 90,000 and that they have about 35 homicides within them in a typical year. The experience of New York since 1993 suggests that slum homicide rates of 13 per 100,000 are achievable goals. You need smart tactics and boots on the ground, though.

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  51. Louise

    Just adding my recommendation also for Broadchurch.

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  52. Janet

    While trying to figure out if I could watch the first season of Endeavour online for free (Yes, on Amazon Prime), I saw that BBC is doing Death at Pemberley in October. I’m thinking that it might be better than the book.
    AMDG

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  53. Janet

    Elizabeth isn’t pretty enough, though. It’s Anna Maxwell Martin who played Esther Summerson in Bleak House. I thought she was great in BH, and I really like the way she looks. She just doesn’t look like Elizabeth Bennett.
    AMDG

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  54. Grumpy

    I bought episode 1 of Broad church on amazon the minute I read Robs comment

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  55. Janet

    Y’all have to stop. There are so many things that I want to watch RIGHT NOW that I am about to explode.
    AMDG

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  56. Mac

    Your estimate sounds about right, Art, if you’re talking about Mobile. I didn’t bother to save the reference but in verifying my memory about the typical rate earlier (yesterday?) I ran across a chart that had the homicide rate per 100,000 over the past ten years or so ranging from a low of 14 or 15 to a high of…twice that, maybe? I do remember that the lows were atypical. Whether any sort of police work short of something close to martial law could keep it low, I don’t have any idea.

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  57. Mac

    I watched Alien last night. Emphasize “night” and “I”–nobody else around. Fewer ill effects than I would have expected. It is not really my kind of thing, but for what it is, it’s really good. Definitely way better than Aliens. I really liked the opening scenes, where they’re arriving and investigating. I’m curious now about Prometheus. Anybody seen it?

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  58. Mac

    I don’t know if AMM looks like EB or not, but she is a good actress. Janet, don’t get mad, but: The Bletchley Circle. She’s in it.

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  59. janet

    Oh good grief. A series.
    AMDG

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  60. Mac

    Yes. I’m sorry.

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  61. Mac

    But it’s only pretty good, not great, if that helps.

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  62. Marianne

    I don’t know about Anna Maxwell Martin not being pretty enough to play Elizabeth Bennett. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy was mostly taken with her “fine eyes,” and I think AMM fills the bill in that regard. Much more so than the glamorous Keira Knightley did in the latest movie version of Pride and Prejudice.

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  63. janet

    That wasn’t Pride & Prejudice. 😉
    So we know that Elizabeth’s nose was tolerable enough and her teeth were good.
    And we know that Mr. Bingley though her at least, very pretty and that in the end Mr. Darcy thought her to be one of the handsomest women of his acquaintance.
    So maybe not beautiful but still I don’t think AMM fills the bill. She’s cute.
    Still, like I said, I like AMM very much. She’s a very good actress and looks like just the sort of person I would like to have for a friend.
    Actually I thought that Elizabeth Garvie was the best Lizzy and she wasn’t really beautiful either, but she did have beautiful eyes, although she was a bit cross-eyed, and she was pert and lively, which Lizzy should be.
    AMDG

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  64. Grumpy

    Just watched the first episode of Broadchurch. Thanks for the recommendation.

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  65. Mac

    Funny, “fine eyes” is almost the only definite thing I remember from when I read Pride and Prejudice many years ago. I remember the general outline of the plot but very very few specifics.

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  66. Rob G

    “Just watched the first episode of Broadchurch. Thanks for the recommendation.”
    I found it very addicting. One night I watched 3 episodes back to back!

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  67. Art Deco

    Whether any sort of police work short of something close to martial law could keep it low, I don’t have any idea.
    Giuliani did not need martial law in New York City. The dimensions of greater Mobile and the living costs therein being what they are, such a police force would be expensive, somewhat north of 3x normal police expenditure as a share of local incomes.

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  68. Janet

    Just watched the first 3 episodes of Broadchurch back-to-back. It was superb.
    We also watched the first season of Endeavour and I really enjoyed it, but I’m afraid that now it has to wait for BC. My only problem with Endeavour is that I’m afraid that by watching it before I’ve seen all the John Thaw episodes, I’m missing a lot of those aha! moments that you get in The Magician’s Nephew when you read Narnia in the right order.
    AMDG
    AMDG

    Reply
  69. Mac

    I know I’ve missed some. I may or may not have seen all the John Thaw ones, but in any case most of that would have been back when they were first released, 20+ years ago, so I don’t remember much. I didn’t get even a fairly big thing like Constable (?) Strange being Morse’s future boss.
    I boosted Broadchurch up toward the top of my queue.

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  70. Janet

    I didn’t even know that about Strange. I don’t remember him even from the 5 or 6 that we’ve watched recently.
    So, Thursday isn’t in the originals at all?
    Looking for pictures of Strange on Google, I see that they’ve taken a couple of shots of the young Morse in the same positions as some older pictures. Also, looking at the way Morse stands and sits in the older pictures, you can really see how they’ve mimicked that.
    AMDG

    Reply
  71. Mac

    I don’t remember Thursday being in the originals, but I could be wrong. If you figure he’s around 50 in Endeavour, though, and Morse is at least in his 50s in the John Thaw years, you’d figure Thursday was long retired.
    One thing I admit that I do have difficulty imagining is Endeavour being as generally forceful as Morse often is.

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  72. Art Deco

    The character Morse was born around 1940 in both televised versions; Strange was presented as a close contemporary; Lewis is presented as having been born around 1958 in the televised version; they reconceptualized him as a younger man for the series and Colin Dexter supposedly said that Kevin Whately’s Lewis was more to his liking than the one he’d imagined for the books.
    The actors in question were born in 1942, 1927, and 1951 respectively. What strikes you about John Thaw in the early episodes is what an old looking 45 he was.
    The character Fred Thursday was not in the original series (though may have been drawn from the books). He is presented as having first joined the police force in 1938 (and returned to it after the war) so might be approaching 50 during the years the newer series takes place guessing he left school at 16 and worked at other occupations for a few years ‘ere passing the police examinations. The standard retirement age in Britain, but one assumes the police retirement age was and is earlier. The writers of the Prime Suspect series, who aspired to a versimilitude Morse lacks, had her character joining the police force at age 17 and retiring at age 54.

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  73. Mac

    Definitely an old-looking 45. Yeah, if Morse was born in 1940, and the ’80s series was assumed to take place contemporarily, that would put him at 47 when the series started, and Thaw at 45. That’s kind of startling, but helps to explain the plausible longevity of the series–I mean, as I recall, Morse/Thaw does not look all that much older at the end of the series in 2000. So he starts out looking pretty old, but doesn’t age badly from there (if memory serves).
    I watched the first Prime Suspect and found it too creepy. I suppose it was more realistic.

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  74. Janet

    We watched the first Prime Suspect, and it was years before I could even look at Helen Mirren. It was creepy. It had that, I-have-to-go-take-a-bath-now feeling.
    I can imagine Endeavour becoming that forceful because he’s already stand so firm if he thinks something is right–or wrong.
    AMDG

    Reply
  75. Marianne

    Never realized that John Thaw was only 45 when Morse began. He did seem older. Seems to run in the family. His daughter, Abigail Thaw, plays the Oxford newspaper editor in Endeavour. She’s around the same age her dad was at the start of Morse, and she, too, at least to me, seems a bit older than that, or at least not a young-looking 45 or so — see here. And if she had white hair like her father, she’d seem even older.

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  76. Mac

    Hmm, around 45 would have been my guess for her age. Maybe it’s precisely the white hair that makes him look older than that.

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  77. Art Deco

    Hmm, around 45 would have been my guess for her age. Maybe it’s precisely the white hair that makes him look older than that.
    I’d have assumed older, with dyed hair, but that’s looking at her with 2014 lenses. (The actress is actually 49 as we speak).
    Attempting 1966 lenses, I cannot tell. I think the turkey neck still marks her as well into middle age in either era. She lacks the contrived dowdiness which was common (though not universal) among women of that era.
    The make-up artist had different objects in the interview.
    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/watch-online/shorts/endeavour-shaun-evans-and-abigail-thaw/

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  78. Art Deco

    Ach.

    http://www.jacksonfeild.com/resources/Dorothy%20Weiss%20.jpg

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  79. Mac

    She looks younger in the interview than in the show, which I guess is what you mean about the makeup artist. If I look at her in character through remembered 1966 eyes, they’re teenager’s eyes, and she simply looks old. Anything from 30 to 50 was old, and past 50 was really old.
    Who is Dorothy Weiss? Or is that just an illustration of dowdy? My 1966 eyes think she’s sorta cute, actually, especially with the glasses off.

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  80. Marianne

    Dang, it’s frustrating being here in NZ — PBS won’t let me watch that interview video, says: “We’re sorry, but this video is not available in your region due to right restrictions.” Happens to me all the time.

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  81. Mac

    That’s too bad–it’s Shaun Evans and Abigail Thaw discussing that scene where the two characters first meet, and there’s that little inside joke where he asks if he’s seen her somewhere before (I think it’s him asking her, not the other way around). A touching moment on the set, they say.

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  82. Art Deco

    Who is Dorothy Weiss? Or is that just an illustration of dowdy
    No one I know.
    Just a minor example of someone spending money to look worse than she might have if she hadn’t. I’ve seen worse examples. Looking at my mother’s high school yearbook, there was a definite decline in taste re women’s grooming between 1948 and 1966. Womens’ eyewear seems to have been in decline from the Depression, reaching its pit with the cat’s eye glasses common ca. 1966. Men’s eyewear reached it’s pit with the hideous oversized lenses of the 1970s (a proper accoutrement to the ugliest clothes and worst haircuts in human history).
    My mother loved her time at the beauty parlor, which is I suppose why she went every week. I have photographs of her from 1948 or thereabouts where her hair was trimmed and just past shoulder length and nothing was done to it; she never wore it that way again and it never looked better. The reading glasses she was prescribed in 1952 were the handsomest pair she ever owned. My father managed to find an agreeable pair of glasses ca. 1975, but somehow it was beyond my mother.
    I show up at Mass and see the same phenomenon among the women the next set of cohorts down from my mother. The awful hair, ugly glasses, ugly ensembles. The women of the postwar cohorts generally do not compare well to their elders as human beings, but they do understand that less is more. (Unfortunately, the men of these vintages are all wandering around in windbreakers and baseball caps, something my father never would have done).
    I think I’m off topic.

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  83. Mac

    Some of the most interesting discussions are off-topic.
    The cat-eye glasses were, as I recall, favored by Gary Larson in the Far Side comic, to give female figures (not necessarily human) a little extra touch of awfulness.
    I think the big change that happened in women’s hairstyles at some point was treating the hair as a material for sculptural composition rather than letting it be hair. The actual style of, say, Lauren Bacall’s hair in a ’40s movie might look a bit old-fashioned, but it’s attractive, and doesn’t look nearly as dated as the bouffant stuff that came later.

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  84. Janet

    I think the big change that happened in women’s hairstyles at some point was treating the hair as a material for sculptural composition rather than letting it be hair.
    Well, that’s been going on as far back as we have any pictorial representation–and not just with women.
    AMDG

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  85. Marianne

    A princess ‘do in the bouffant era. More Nefertiti, though, I think.

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  86. Mac

    In olden days they were limited by not having hairspray. Or maybe they just painted and glued it.

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  87. Janet

    Can’t do this with hairspray.
    AMDG

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  88. Paul

    Or indeed this.

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  89. Mac

    Yes, no doubt lard or needles and thread were very much up to the task.
    My original remark was only meant in reference to the ’40s-to-mid-’60s transition. But I think I’ve seen references to “lacquered” hair that predate that, so maybe hairspray was just a technological update?

    Reply
  90. Janet

    So, I have watched two episodes of Bletchley Circle (and left our heroine in a very horrible situation indeed), Endeavour through the first episode of the second series, and all of Broadchurch.
    I enjoyed them all, I thought Broadchurch was very good, although there were a couple of places where it was less than perfect, and they did one thing which I really wish they had not done, but I don’t want to talk about it until Maclin gets to see it. There was one rather pleasant surprise there too. I wish it wasn’t going to be so long until season 2 arrives.
    AMDG

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  91. Mac

    I appreciate you holding off about Broadchurch, because I’m probably not going to get to it for several weeks at least. I’ve let myself get hooked on The Americans–I don’t think it’s all that good but now I want to find out what happens. Which is foolish because there probably won’t be any resolution of the big plot elements, since there’s another “season” in the works.

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  92. Louise

    Paul – I just went to that link. That was great!

    Reply
  93. Mac

    Speaking of movies, I had recorded Goodfellas a while back, and watched about 30 minutes of it last night before stopping it and deleting it. I think I’ve mentioned before that this colorful big city Mafia thing just does not appeal to me. I find those people off-putting even apart from their constant stealing and killing. And when you add that, I think “why am I watching this?” If I’d had some reason to think that it was really going to turn out to be a great work of art, or even if it had been a gripping plot, I’d have kept on, but I didn’t see either of those happening.
    I mention it partly because it’s apparently a cultural-regional thing: I think I react to it the way some people in other parts of the country react to Southern rednecks.

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  94. Rob G

    “I thought Broadchurch was very good, although there were a couple of places where it was less than perfect, and they did one thing which I really wish they had not done…There was one rather pleasant surprise there too.”
    That will be an interesting discussion. All in all I thought it was nearly flawless, definitely one of the best things of its sort that I’ve seen. I wonder if your “pleasant surprise” is the same as mine? And I can’t think what that “one thing” might be!

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  95. Rob G

    I’ve long thought Scorcese is overrated. I remember liking Goodfellas when it came out, and I watched it once subsequently, but that’s been ages and I’ve never really been tempted to watch it again. I wonder what I’d think now?
    The only modern gangster pics I’ve gone back to more than once are Godfathers I and II (III is horrible), and Leone’s ‘Once Upon a Time in America.’ Oh, and ‘Miller’s Crossing’ too.
    You’re right — dreadful people! Why spend time with them? This is probably one of the reasons The Sopranos never caught on with me.

    Reply
  96. Janet

    All will be revealed.
    AMDG

    Reply
  97. Mac

    I can see The Godfather being treated as a significant film (I’m not sure I ever saw Part II, and am sure I never saw III). It’s an impressive work in a lot of ways, although I think critics see a lot more in it than I did. But your average run-of-the-mill gangster story…that’s what Goodfellas seemed to be on its way to being. I agree that Scorsese is over-rated. Never seen anything by him that I thought justified the term “great,” although he is good. I did like The Departed, as we discussed here a while back. But it had a very taut and powerful plot.

    Reply
  98. Marianne

    Broadchurch was broadcast on New Zealand television a couple of months ago. I started out really liking it, but it was shown over several Sunday nights with NZ TV’s usual many and frequent commercial breaks, which made it seem especially drawn out and broke the dramatic spell.
    Do you know there’s an American TV remake called Gracepoint, starring the same male lead? Weird.

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  99. Janet

    Yes. Doesn’t start until October.
    I don’t think that’s too unusual except for having the same lead. The Office, State of Play–I’m sure there are others.
    AMDG

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  100. Marianne

    There’s usually some lag time, though, isn’t there between British and U.S. versions? Broadchurch is ongoing.

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  101. Mac

    House of Cards. But it does seem very strange to have the same lead actor in both versions.

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  102. Rob G

    I think that ‘Gracepoint’ may have the same writer and one of the same directors as well. Normally I tend not to pay too much attention to U.S. remakes of this sort, but this one could actually be quite good, since it’s got some of the same people involved and has a strong cast — besides Tennant, it stars Anna Gunn, Michael Pena and Jacki Weaver.
    It’ll be interesting to see what they do with Tennant’s accent, and also, how the relationship plays between him and his partner, as Anna Gunn is considerably more of a looker than Olivia Colman. A friend and I are wondering if they’ll frump her up a bit!

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  103. Janet

    I am frankly itching to talk about BC. The more I think about it, the more I see to talk about.
    AMDG

    Reply
  104. Mac

    I think the first dvd is coming from Netflix soon. I may regret that as I’ll have to choose between finishing up The Americans, which would take 2 weeks or so, and starting BC.

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  105. Mac

    I had to check to see if my memory was correct, and it is: Anna Gunn was Skyler in Breaking Bad. I always thought there was something a bit off-putting about her looks–something a bit masculine or something, that kept me from seeing her as really attractive. And I was not among those who hated the character.

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  106. Louise

    I enjoyed BC, but my daughter is quite crazy about it. She is going to force all her little buddies to watch the whole thing with her for her 18th birthday! Fortunately, I think they all have the same taste in TV.

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  107. Janet

    I think it’s interesting that the female lead will still be named “Ellie Miller” while Tennant changes from Alec Hardy to Emmett (hmmm) Carver.
    AMDG

    Reply
  108. Marianne

    Tennant’s doing an American accent in Gracepoint.
    And I see Nick Nolte’s in it.

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  109. Rob G

    Yes, I think you’re right about Anna Gunn, Mac. Attractive, but not terribly so. A super-model type would not have worked as Skyler at all. It would not have been believable.
    And no, I didn’t hate her character either. It would have been very easy for the filmmakers to turn her into a Lady Macbeth, and I’m extremely glad they didn’t.

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  110. Janet

    That article with the trailer says that the American version will have a different ending?
    AMDG

    Reply
  111. Rob G

    I think they’ve said it’s a possibility, but not definite.

    Reply

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