Canticle

Before Inspector Morse, there was the rookie Constable Morse, fed up with police work and ready to nip his career in the bud by handing in his resignation.

1966 brings Endeavour a fresh quartet of baffling mysteries set to test his brain and body to breaking point. Though offset by the possibility of love unlooked for, against a backdrop of growing change in Britain and the wider world, Endeavour must face a challenge that threatens to take from him all he holds dear... Family. Friends. Colleagues. The old order changeth... but not without a fight. To the death.

Last seen languishing in a prison cell and framed for a crime he didn't commit, Endeavour is impelled to return to duty when a young woman's baffling murder requires his singularly cerebral mind to solve. As both men struggle to find their bearings amidst the rapidly changing climate of early 1967, four cases set against the dreaming spires of Oxford test their partnership in unexpected ways, as Colin Dexter's iconic detective is pushed to new extremes in his unrivalled commitment to truth and justice.

In Series four, barely a fortnight has passed since the events depicted in the series three finale, and we find Oxford’s finest picking up the pieces of their lives, both personal and professional. Endeavour waits to hear the result of his Sergeant’s Exam, and self-medicates to numb his heartache, but whisky and Tännhauser will only get a man so far. While Thursday and Win deal with their own sense of grief. Their home is empty, Sam gone to the Army and Joan… Who knows where? The stories that remain will take Endeavour and Thursday, together with the rest of Oxford’s Finest, into places hitherto unexplored – the worlds of 1960s pop; Doctors and Nurses; and an exploration of the English pastoral.

It's now 1968. Endeavour’s promotion leads him to reluctantly mentor new recruit Fancy, while Thursday is thinking about life after the police. But in Oxford, crime never sleeps. Will things at Cowley Police Station ever be the same again?

With the old Cowley team now scattered across Oxfordshire, Endeavour has reluctantly settled into a sedate way of life in an isolated countryside outpost. An uncomfortable Thursday also has a new role at the forbidding Castle Gate station, joining former adversary DCI Ronnie Box and his new sidekick DS Alan Jago. Strange has taken on a management role with Division, while Bright has been relegated to the Traffic department. The Summer of Love is well and truly over, and 1969 promises to be darker and more challenging than ever.

Opening on New Year’s Eve 1969, normal order has been resumed and the team reunited at Castle Gate CID. However, the events of the past year have left their mark. Old friendships will be challenged and new relationships will blossom.

Series eight is set in 1971 and a death threat to Oxford Wanderers' star striker Jack Swift places Endeavour and his team at the heart of the glitz and glamour of 1970s football, exposing the true cost of success and celebrity, and with it, a deep-rooted division that is soon reflected much closer to home.

It's Spring, 1972. Two unexplained deaths turn up ties to the Oxford Concert Orchestra, while a body discovered in a derelict warehouse stokes fears that ‘London business' has yet again found its way to Oxford. Thursday and Endeavour's investigation unearths some unsettling connections to cases the duo believed were well and truly behind them.