Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Shaun Evans, Roger Allam, Anton Lesser, James Bradshaw, Sean Rigby, Geoffery Streatfield,  Jack Bannon, Lavina Bertram, Robert Blythe, Paul Bullion, Sarah Crowden, Will Featherstone, Joanna Horton, Jack Laskey, Iain McKee, Michelle Morris, Caroline O’Neil, Kelly Price, Laura Rees, Lex Shrapnel, Robin Soans, Abigail Thaw, Sarah Vickers, Claire Vousden.

What the late great John Thaw would have made of the latest episode of Endeavour is anyone’s guess. In all the years Morse was on television screens, he never had to contend with someone so twisted and evil as Dr. Daniel Cronyn/Keith Miller, portrayed by Geoffrey Streatfield and for that viewers must be thankful for the thought of a serial killer calculating his way around in 1990s Oxford is a little more disturbing to cope with than the apparent gentle University streets of the 1960s.

Fugue, written by Russell Lewis, matches stride for stride any of the classic episodes of the John Thaw era, The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn, Last Bus to Woodstock and the unforgettable The Remorseful Day for example with its complexity, well thought and script or in the case of the final episode The Remorseful Day, the sheer screen presence of all involved in the affair.

If viewers include the pilot shown in 2012, this is only the third episode that fans of the series have been privy to watch but already it is obvious that the same careful mix of chemistry that made Morse a success and was followed through into the Lewis series has been captured neatly in Endeavour. It is the relationship between the young Detective Constable and his superior, the wonderfully suited Roger Allam as seasoned pro Fred Thursday that makes it the programme compulsive viewing. For Morse’s loneliness, his love of opera and the cryptic clue being his constant companions, Thursday’s home life is refreshing, even touching. This dichotomy gives the two men room to grow and learn something from each other and when they are hunting down a serial killer with a passion for the same cryptic, unsettled life as Morse, both men’s strengths work together well.

Fugue is a heavyweight episode, one that is going to take a lot of work to ever match for its writing scale and sheer nerve, an episode of distinction in which Sean Evans and Roger Allam excel.                

Ian D. Hall