OUR WEEKLY "ENDEAVOUR" - "PASSENGER"

Now that the fifth season of 'Endeavour' has finally graced the American shores, it's time to look at the latest episode, the third of the season, "Passenger".

But first I'd like to tip my Toobworld cap to a web site that has brought added pleasure to watching this show - "Morse, Lewis, and Endeavour".  Chris Sullivan goes into incredible, exhausting detail about each episode, running down every word puzzle and hidden connection to other TV shows, books, and movies (which I'm most keen about) as well as cluing us in to the locations, actors, music, and yes, Colin Dexter sightings - even now, a year after he's passed!

I think it's safe to say that thanks to Russell Lewis and his work with 'Endeavour', this prequel to 'Morse' could be a rival to 'St. Elsewhere' as a major crossovers hub.

If "Morse, Lewis, and Endeavour" sounds like something that might be of interest to you, click on this link.

As it's a site that's full of information... information... information for televisiologists and TV crossoverists, I'll be adding it to the Inner Toob blogroll.

So.

'ENDEAVOUR'

"PASSENGER"

From the IMDb:
The railway takes center stage as Endeavour investigates the disappearance of a local woman - with initial fears linking it to the unsolved murder of a teenager, killed several years earlier.

Let's begin with the big crossover for the episode....

From the IMDb's trivia page:
In 2018, Endeavour: Passenger (2018) featured a certain "Crossroads Motel" in King's Oak, in a key scene. Set in the late 1960s, the series used a re-constructed version of the outdoor sign, reception and hotel room sets. This inclusion, of an ATV/Central TV programme that happens to be set in the same period and area, can plausibly imply that the original version of "Crossroads"/"King's Oak" and the later "Endeavour"/"Morse"/"Lewis" series exist within the same story universe.

From Wikipedia:
'Crossroads' is a British television soap opera that ran on ITV over two periods – the original 1964 to 1988 run, followed by a short revival from 2001 to 2003. Set in a fictional motel (hotel, in the revival) in the Midlands, 'Crossroads' became a byword for cheap production values, particularly in the 1970s and early 1980s. Despite this, the series regularly attracted huge audiences during this time, with ratings as high as 15 million viewers.

I'll admit, I never heard of 'Crossroads' before, but I find this connection exciting.  Someone more interested in following that trail might be able to find theories of "relateeveety" from those 'Crossroads' characters to other TV characters from other shows - not just the "Endeaverse" franchise, but to other TV shows in the UK and even over to the American TV output.  (And that's one reason why Russell Lewis is in the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.)

Speaking of characters from 'Crossover',,,,
 

Again from the IMDb:
Morse goes to a hotel just outside Birmingham in Kings Oak called The Crossroads Motel. This was a soap series with one of the main characters being a cleaner Amy Turtle. The receptionist who shows Morse the room, that hadn't been cleaned, said she would have to have a word with "Mrs T".

Mrs. Turtle, as seen here on the right, would then have two credits to her name (even if one is theoretical, but it's a strongly valid theory) and would just need one more mention somewhere to qualify for membership in the TVXOHOF as well.

Here's another possible crossover:

From the IMDb Connections page:
The Brothers (1972) (TV Series)
The haulage firms is named Hammonds.

And from 'Morse, Lewis, and Endeavour':
I’m assuming that Hammond and Sons Hauliers is a reference to a British TV show of the 1970s called 'The Brothers'. Primarily the show is about Robert Hammond’s three sons Edward, Brian, and David who inherit the family trucking company and try to run it after Robert dies.

If there is a difference in the company name between the two series, there is also a time span of four years.  That's plenty of time for the corporation to reorganize with a new name.

Let's play train spotters for a moment and take a look at the train stations mentioned in the episode:

From the IMDb:
The station which features in this episode is Norborough. This is the name of the station in the April 1967 'Avengers' episode "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station" (1967).

Thanks to reader Lee Sylvester, 'Morse, Lewis, and Endeavour' provided more stations to be considered:

Chadwick Station
This is from a short story entitled "The Adventure Of The Lost Locomotive".  The details of that story live on in Jasper Fforde's BookWorld.  I can't speak for any of the characters - I'm not familiar with that 1951 story.  But both meta-fictional universes at least share that train station.

Pudham Station
Hamingwell Halt
Both of these are to be found in one of the St. Trinian's movies, "The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery".  As with Chadwick Station, these two stations thus share two meta-fictional universes - my own playground of Toobworld and Craig Shaw Gardner's creation of the Cineverse.  (But that would be the only connection to the St. Trinian's franchise, I'm afraid. So far, there have been no TV adaptations that I've been able to locate.)

And saving the best for last....

Whimperley Station
We have another TV link!  And even better, this train station is a multiversal - to be found in BookWorld and Toobworld.  Whimperley Station is from Dame Agatha Christie's story "Dead Man's Mirror" which featured her Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot.  It was adapted for the 'Poriot' series starring David Suchet, the official televersion of Poirot for Earth Prime-Time.  (All other TV portrayals of Poirot would be relegated to other TV dimensions, even if - as was the case with Martin Gabel's performance - on TV first.)

I hope my friends who research the Wold Newton Universe from all angles know about this!

Then there are crossovers which bind 'Endeavour' to either its progenitor, 'Morse' or to its fellow spin-off, 'Inspector Lewis'.

From the IMDb:
The song that plays in the Boutique when Morse and Thursday visit, is a song of the band Midnight Addiction, which the 'Inspector Lewis' Episode "Counter Culture Blues" (2009) is centred around.

From the Rocklopedia Fakebandica:
A progressive blues-rock group in the series Lewis (Inspector Lewis in some countries) episode "Counter Culture Blues", 2009.

Supposedly an adolescent favourite of Lewis himself (Kevin Whately), who has some of their albums, their manager claims they were the third biggest-selling progressive rock act of all time. Their signature song (which we never get to hear) was "Counter Culture Blues", apparently "the anthem of a generation". Among the intrigue is that the bassist apparently wrote the song but was so out of his head on Mandrax that he didn't even remember doing it and gave the publishing away to the lead guitarist as a result, and the mysterious "return from the dead" of lead singer Esme Ford (played by Joanna Lumley with an Irish accent that she can't quite manage to keep up for an entire sentence), whom everyone believed had thrown herself into the sea many years earlier. 

Another such inner crossover would be via the character of DS Patrick Dawson from the robbery squad.  Here he was played by Thomas Coombes, but he was first seen, much older, in the 'Morse' episode "Second Time Around'.  There he was played by Kenneth Colley.  (I think because of Colley's participation, that episode is one that has really stuck with me.)

Team Toobworld probably knows that 'Doctor Who' finally usurped 'The Prisoner' as my Number One favorite show after forty years.  So I'm always on the lookout for anything that might link a show to the Time Lord.

And in this case, I found one in the IMDb's Goofs section:
In the house-warming party the Rolling Stones track, "Can You Hear Me Knocking", is playing as Morse goes through the house. The events of this episode take place in 1968 but this song was on the "Sticky Fingers" album, which came out in 1971.

This situation happened in 'Downton Abbey' once when they played a record on the gramophone that would not be pressed until the next year.  My splainin?  It's a record that was either left behind by the Doctor somehow or the Doctor was actually at that party at Joan's new flat and had taken over the deejay duties. 

The gramophone in the TARDIS

Why would the Doctor have left behind records in the 1920s and the1960s?  It has been often stated that he never carries money.  Perhaps he used these as barter for whatever he (or she) and the Companions needed in the TARDIS.

Over in his review for "Passengers", Chris of 'Morse, Lewis, and Endeavour' made this observation:

Finally, (thank heavens I hear you say) how can Joan afford that flat in the middle of Oxford on a part time wage? I know she is flat sharing but it would need to be ten people sharing to make it affordable on a part time wage.

Perhaps, using Gallifreyan technology, the flat was bigger on the inside like the TARDIS.  A Time Lord who called himself Professor Chronotis had a similar apartment at St. Cedd's College of Cambridge University.  Perhaps this was his as well, either using another alias for a life at Oxford or he was sub-letting it at a reasonable rate to Joan Thursday.  (He would have liked her surname... so timely!)  Using that splainin, the Rolling Stones album could then have been part of his own collection, without direct connection to the Doctor.

By the way, anybody who would complain that Chris was droning on just doesn't get the work of a televisiologist.  We're the "televersion" of train spotters! 

As for any other Zonks, there is mention by Win Thursday of "the minstrels".  I've never seen any footage from this, but I've read so much about it - she's referring to 'The Black and White Minstrel Show' which ran for two decades on British telly.  Yeah - from 1958 to 78.  White performers in blackface.  And over here, we thought 'Amos and Andy' was bad.

But the fact that she and Fred watch that show is not a Zonk.  It's a variety program and those don't affect Toobworld if they watch them over there as we would have.  I don't even see any reason to splain it away unless we're dealing with specifics - like introducing a guest star and mentioning them as the star of a show which should be sharing the same TV dimension as the characters watching the variety show.

Here's one final entry from the IMDb which I would like to address:
There are references to famous films by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in this segment. Not only does the murder victim have a pair of red shoes, but the stolen whiskey featured in this story has the brand-name "Killoran" - the name of the fictitious Hebridean island where most of "I Know Where I'm Going" (1945) takes place.

These are in-jokes, along the lines of the character Don Mercer who is allegedly a counterpart to Don Draper of 'Mad Men'.  Both men work in advertising and mercers and drapers both deal in fabrics.  But as he's NOT Don Draper, there is no connection to that show.

In this case, both references are to movies made by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, but neither one is strong enough a reference to justify absorbing those movies out of the Cineverse and into the greater Toobworld Dynamic, especially that red shoes nod.  However, I see no reason not to consider Killoran as a Scottish island in the Toobworld atlas and the place where Killoran whiskey (established by this episode) is produced.

Not a bad collection of definite crossovers this week:

• 'Crossovers'
• 'The Brothers'
• 'Poirot'
• 'The Avengers'

Plus the inner crossovers to 'Morse' and 'Inspector Lewis'.

And there were several theoretical connections:

• 'Doctor Who'
• 'Downton Abbey'

And so there we have it, this week's look at an 'Endeavour' episode and the connections it forged with the greater TV Universe.  I hope you enjoyed it.

My thanks to Chris Sullivan, Lee Sylvester, and the IMDb contributors for all the work they had done in making the trivial epic.

BCnU!