Everything to Remember Ahead of 'Endeavour's Final Season

Once upon a time, there was an Inspector named Morse. Based on the novels by Colin Dexter and starring John Thaw as the titular detective, it was initially broadcast on ITV's regional broadcasters in the mid-1980s. When it came over the next year as part of Masterpiece's spinoff anthology brand Mystery!, it became the first contemporary set police procedural to be a massive hit with American audiences. It then generated two spinoffs, the follow-up Inspector Lewis and the prequel-set Endeavour, which starred Shaun Evans as a young Morse.

Endeavour first introduced Morse in 1965 as a young constable, an Oxford-educated working-class man who chose police work over intellectual pursuits. The head inspector, Fred Thursday (Roger Allam), recognized Morse's talents and promoted him to his bagman/sidekick, taking him under his wing to show him the ropes. He also semi-adopted Morse, who was estranged from his family, and his wife Winifred (Caroline O'Neill) became a bit of a surrogate mother to Endeavour, while their daughter, Joan Thursday (Sarah Vickers), became his unrequited crush, much to the annoyance of Thursdays' son, Sam (Jack Bannon).

Morse was a prickly sort, a snob by education, and paranoid due to being taken from his family at a young age. Having Thursday championing him was a godsend, as it helped his superior, PCS Reginald Bright (Anton Lesser), see beyond how irritating the young man was and gave him breathing room with his colleagues who he alienated. Over the years, that lineup included current colleagues DS Jim Strange (Sean Rigby) and pathologist Dr. Max DeBryn (James Bradshaw), as well as former ones, like DS Peter Jakes (Jack Laskey), PC Shirley Trewlove (Dakota Blue Richards), DS Arthur Lott (Danny Webb), and DC Ronnie Box (Simon Harrison).