Endeavour (TV Series) Nocturne (2014) User Reviews

excellent episode

[blanche-2 · 8/10 · 6 July 2014]

Endeavor investigates a mystery that may have a link to a tragedy 100 years earlier in "Nocturne," in this prequel to the Inspector Morse series, set in 1966.

Shaun Evans plays Endeavor, and he is a wonderful actor. As the series has continued, Morse has gained confidence. As usual, he has the support of his boss, Thursday (Roger Allam). though the head honcho, Bright, a weaselly man who doesn't "get" him (Anton Lesser) still isn't altogether happy. Nevertheless, Morse, through hard work, good observation, and intuition, solves case after case.

When a genealogist is murdered in the museum, Morse investigates at the school that was in attendance that day visiting, the Blythe Mount School. Some students are staying there for the summer; there is also the headmistress, Miss Symes (Diane Fletcher), and a teacher, Victoria Danby (Susy Kane). Morse learns that the school was originally a house owned by the Blaise-Hamilton family, and 100 years earlier, five people were found murdered at the house. Supposedly, the ghost of the surviving daughter, Charlotte, walks around the school at night.

Morse has to delve into the period woman in white he actually sees, two missing girls, and another murder to get to the bottom of the case.

This is a very suspenseful, compelling mystery that will keep you guessing. And once the solution is given, there's yet another twist.

Love this series, though as I've said before, it's hard to picture Endeavor morphing into the older Morse who growls "Lewis." Doesn't matter.

Impressive in all areas.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 9/10 · 23 July 2018]

Nocturne is a fantastic episode of Endeavour, the writing is first rate, but once again the execution and delivery are impeccable also.

First rate story, delicious dark and complicated, one that puts Morse's intelligence and powers of deduction to the test, solving two mysteries, which span two centuries. The creepy vibe worked incredibly well, an almost ghost story feel, with apparitions and sightings haunting the main protagonists.

Shaun Evans on top form alongside the brilliant Roger Allan, Daniel Ings also giving a hugely memorable performance. Probably the most dramatic opening to an episode in the show's history.

I loved it, 9/10

Generally one of the best 'Endeavour' episodes to date

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 4 July 2017]

Having recently been, and just finished being, on a roll reviewing all the episodes of 'Lewis', which generally was very enjoyable before having some disappointments later on, it occurred to me to do the same for 'Inspector Morse's' (one of my favourites for over a decade, and all the episodes were also reviewed in my first year on IMDb eight years ago) prequel series 'Endeavour'.

As said in my review for the entire show two years ago, 'Endeavour' is not just a more than worthy prequel series to one of my favourite detective dramas of all time and goes very well with it, but it is a great series on its own as well. It maintains everything that makes 'Inspector Morse' so good, while also containing enough to make it its own, and in my mind 'Inspector Morse', 'Lewis' and 'Endeavour' go perfectly well together.

Was very impressed by the pilot episode, even with a very understandable slight finding-its-feet feel (that is true of a lot of shows, exceptions like 'Morse' itself, 'A Touch of Frost' and 'Midsomer Murders', which started off great and were remarkably well established, are fairly few. The first episode of the first season "Girl" was a very welcome return, a fine episode in its own right and was even better. Morse's personality is more established with more obvious recognisable personality quirks and generally things feel more settled. Then there was "Fugue", which to me is one of the best episodes of 'Endeavour', while "Rocket" and "Home" just as good.

Even with an appreciatively darker tone than the first season, Season 2 started very well with "Trove", which was also sadly let down by a far-fetched and over-complicated ending. "Nocturne" is one of the darkest 'Endeavour' episodes and also one of the creepiest, most suspenseful and poignant. It's not perfect, the scenes with Morse and his nurse neighbour are a little pointless (though am not going to denounce it for political-correctness) and the final twist does come a little out of the blue, though is much easier to digest and understand than the ending of "Trove".

"Nocturne's" production values once again are spot on. The episode is exquisitely photographed and there is something very nostalgic and charming about the atmospherically evoked 1960s period detail. It was also a genius move to keep Barrington Pheloung on board, with his hauntingly beautiful scoring and immortal 'Inspector Morse' theme, and the use of music is the most ingenious since "Fugue", adding enormously to and actually enhancing the atmosphere.

Writing, even for so early on, is every bit as intelligent, entertaining and tense as the previous episodes and as the best of 'Morse'. The story has tension, nail-biting a good deal going on and little feels improbable or too obvious while being suitably complicated. Was unnerved a lot by the creepiness of some scenes and also moved, while the twists are well done. Those not so familiar with 'Morse' or new to 'Endeavour' will find plenty to enjoy, and while the pilot and first season are more accessible in tone they will still appreciate the darker route Season 2 takes.

Relationship between Morse and Thursday, which is like a father/son sort of chemistry, is entertaining and heartfelt with so much warmth. The pacing is restrained, but that allows the atmosphere to come through, and pretty much all the same it excels in that aspect. The characters are interesting, lead and supporting, with Morse displaying more recognisable character quirks with each episode and as aforementioned it is impossible not to love his relationship with Thursday.

Shaun Evans as ever does some powerful, charismatic work as younger Morse, showing enough loyalty to John Thaw's iconic Morse while making the character his own too. Roger Allam is also superb, his rapport with Evans always compels and entertains but Thursday is quite a sympathetic character, as well as loyal and firm, and Allam does a lot special with a role that could have been less interesting possibly in lesser hands. All the acting is very good, Anton Lesser has always been fine to me as Bright, the character and performance more sympathetic than usual, while Sean Rigby does a nice job as Strange and James Bradshaw would make Peter Woodthorpe proud. All the support is strong.

All in all, wonderful and one of the best 'Endeavour' episodes to date, even if not quite perfect. 9/10 Bethany Cox

The Best

[polygnotus · 10/10 · 7 April 2014]

Russell Lewis and Shaun Evans have created the perfect detective. Brilliant, thoughtful, and extremely dangerous to unsuspecting villains, the Endeavour character is the most interesting of any British detective I've seen yet. Combined with consistently smart and compelling scripts, this show is the best of the genre.

As any writer knows, a good story requires conflict for the protagonist. A challenge to overcome. Unfortunately, most writers of modern detective fiction achieve this conflict by making their detectives dimwitted and weak. This is usually combined with formulaic, dreadful diversions into troubled pasts, or unhappy spouses, and other such lifeless cutouts and clichés.

I'm afraid it takes a brilliant mind to write a brilliant detective. And apparently, those are in short supply. So enjoy it while it lasts. Before long it will all be shock crime with "3D Autopsy: The Series."

So Good

[Hitchcoc · 10/10 · 25 January 2018]

I feared for a moment that they were going to make this episode something based on the supernatural. Often Morse is told by a colleague to deal with the real world. His real world and others are often at polar opposites. In this episode we have a killing that has a connection to a girl's school in a very old building, the scene of a massacre of children one hundred years previous. A historian has been murdered, his throat slashed. Why this is is at the center of everything. Morse and Thursday spend much time at the school, dealing with girls who have a sort of pecking order. There appears to be a ghost that comes and goes, the young woman who was thought to be the perpetrator in the century old murders. The twists and turns and the red herrings pile up and are masterfully put together. Morse is dogged.

Two mysteries a hundred years apart

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 6 April 2014]

This story opens at a large country house where it appears that a family has been massacred; we don't learn the relevance of this till later though. The action then moves to an Oxford Museum where a group of school girls are looking at the exhibits; then a man goes upstairs and is murdered. Morse goes out to the girls' school to interview them as potential witnesses and one of them slips a note into his pocket; it says 'Save Me'. The school is further linked to the murder when an antique weapon left by the body turns out to have been donated to the museum by the man who lived in the school buildings… and exactly one hundred years previously the building had been the site of the murder depicted in the opening scene. Could two brutal crimes one hundred years apart be linked somehow? When one of the girls goes missing it looks as though Morse's theory about the school being connected to the first murder is correct. There are other possibilities though; the dead man was a retired herald who had been doing research for an American couple looking for their possible grandchild.

After last week's episode this seemed a bit lighter with its talk of hauntings and links to a century old crime… that didn't mean it wasn't enjoyable though. There was definitely something a little creepy about the school and the mystery was interesting. The 1966 setting was nicely emphasised by the fact that the events took place during the World Cup… although inevitably Morse wasn't too interested! Away from the crime young Morse showed that he is just as unlucky with the ladies as the old Morse when a double date arranged by strange proves to be double awkward. When the case was resolved I was a bit surprised as it seemed to come out of nowhere… the killer hadn't even been flagged as a suspect! Overall this was entertaining but to my mind not quite as good as the season opener.

Maybe the best episode so far, inspired by Genesis' The Musical Box

[marco-scozzafava · 10/10 · 24 November 2021]

Other reviewers have already said about the plot so I'll just point out the several references to Genesis and their masterpiece "The Musical Box".

The episode begins with a murder, committed by a little girl with a Croquet bat in the English countryside.

The Musical Box tells of a Victorian girl killing her playmate with a croquet bat.

Shortly after the start, a Musical Box is seen.

The family around which everything revolves is called Blaise-Hamilton.

In "The Musical Box" the homicidal girl is called Cynthia Jane De Blaise-William and the victim Henry Hamilton-Smythe.

There are several references to Lewis Carrol, which Mad Hatter was the logo of Charisma, the Genesis then record company.

Two of the girls are respectively called Philippa Collins and Stephanie Hackett.

Phil Collins and Steve Hackett are two members of Genesis

Other two girls are called Antonia and Edwina.

The former Genesis guitarist, co-author of The Musical Box, is Antony Edwin Phillips 😉

Full of mystery and suspense

[ctyankee1 · 29 April 2014]

This episode starts with the history of an estate where several people were killed a long time ago.

It then becomes a school for girls. It has a summer schools that parents send their kids to when they have no where to send them.

A murder takes place in a nearby museum the day the school teacher takes her class to the museum from this all girls school. The man's throat was slashed that does genealogy history.

Morse and his boss Thursday start to investigate to see if any of the girls that went to the museum that day saw anything or anyone they could tell the police about.

Later at the school young girls start to go missing. The lights start to flicker when some one is doing something in the school. The adults and kids start to think it is ghost from the past because visions of young girls show up with dresses made from old times.

Morse starts to connect the death of the man with a genealogy history he was doing for an American couple.

This episode is very scary and often hard to understand because of the list of the way they explain what is going on and also because of the English accent which is not always clear.

It is a good episode. You would have to watch it more than once to understand it but it will keep you on edge and tense a lot of the time while waiting for final the killer to be revealed.

Strong echoes of Picnic at Hanging Rock

[epacrisimpressa · 9/10 · 12 December 2018]

Along with the apparent ghost story, and a visual reference to The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed as Village of the Damned), there are echoes of the girls' school in the sublime Australian film, Picnic at Hanging Rock, with the beautiful young girls artfully arranged in lovely scenery.

a good combination

[sherlockshen · 9/10 · 29 April 2022]

It's quite interesting to see a horror scene in this kind of solemn series. Such a thriller genre can elegantly demonstrate the boldness and determination of a detective which is absolutely to my will.

However, still don't want this kind of scene show up too often, considering I watch this series while I'm doing the rowing machine. Also, what I want is a detective story, not a pure thriller.

Certainly the best episode of the season, but falls a bit short

[yavermbizi · 6/10 · 24 June 2020]

My overall rating of "Endeavour"'s Season 2: 5/10

I don't know whether it's mostly due to much of the action being centred around a charming and troubled blond girl (much like in first season's "Girl", which I also rated higher than the other stories), but I've felt this episode to be head and shoulders above the rest of this season.

I've quite enjoyed the presence of a World Cup happening in the background, which firmly anchors the story to a concrete epoch and creates a lot of the charm and comedy for the episode. The mystery is quite interesting (although I could've done without the hundred-year-old case being revised, but that's standard "Endeavour" fare, I suppose, where nothing happens without a couple of decades worth of hidden and troubling background, except this time it's taken to a bit of an extreme). The acting is absolutely stellar.

What's lessened my enjoyment were some plot contrivances (especially in the finale), mistakes/lack of clarity with continuity and things of that nature. One thing that really threw me for a loop was Morse's dialogue with the American couple, where after he said: "It was on the first floor" the wife responded with "I don't do stairs so well". I was absolutely certain that they'd be the villians or at least faking being Americans after that, as "first floor" would be understood by an American to be what a Brit would understand as the "ground floor", and so they wouldn't think to mention stairs or their inability to climb them. A really big and puzzling oversight, and a massive red herring.

Best 'Endeavour' Episode to Date

[roastpuppy-256-746071 · 9/10 · 7 July 2014]

I really didn't care for the first season of "Endeavour" but Nocturne is excellent. It has everything: a school located in a foreboding old mansion, a gruesome murder, a ghost, and a surprise ending. Gothic horror at its best.

I would have given the episode a "10" but for the superfluous encounters between Morse and his black neighbor, a nurse, which added absolutely nothing to the show. Apparently, Morse and the nurse are supposed to be romantically interested in each other, which is something that would have NEVER happened in the 1960s. But in British TV, "political correctness" trumps reality every time and lately, every show seems to have at least one token black.

One thing I'm sure caught the attention of most American viewers was that when the American parents were questioned about the murder and upon learning it occurred on the "first floor," the wheelchair-bound woman indicated she had a problem with stairs. However, in America, the "first floor" is what is called the "ground floor" in England. Therefore, the Americans would have assumed the officer was referring to the "first floor" as in "ground floor." Writers and producers today possess very little worldly knowledge and this is a shame.

total load of crap

[sandcrab277 · 1/10 · 4 February 2022]

Morse runs far afield of doing his job and reads way too much into every case and the opera stuff is far flung as well ... these are not real mysteries but a figment of the writers imagination.

Anyone else spotted

[atdawson-25587 · 24 March 2021]

That the writer is almost certainly a fan of Genesis - particularly the album "Nursery Chryme"?

The opening has a musical box playing, with bodies lying around and a bloodstained croquet ballet. With a quick look at the sleeve notes, especially for the track " the Musical Box"...

Ah...nope. None one just becomes a serial killer because his feelings were hurt!

[kristinbauer1 · 5/10 · 30 August 2023]

The kid bashes in the heads of CHILDREN and A BABY. And a WOMAN with a crickey mallet!!! Because his daddy neglected him???? That's A) as thin as it gets and b)has never happened ever. People Don't just turn psychotic serial killer.

It's a well done show in the sense of actors, sets, locations, and period aspects like cars and clothing. It's just the murder mystery is really off! So few shows do get it right. Im sure it's very hard to come up with an engaging murders.

Here's the thing though...so far every Ep of this show-is interesting until the last 7 minutes and then It FALLS APART. The last 7 minutes is this very long explanation that is way too complex and doesn't Hold water.

This is common in shows. It's apparently tough. But here's the deal writers! You don't have a serial killer just because his dad wasn't fair to him!!! My god, how many serial killers would there be!? Well, two in this episode, in this one family! The son, because he got his feelings hurt, bludgeons to death 3 young children, A BABY, and a Woman. My god! That's a psychopath! But the writer makes Morse say, "can you imagine how hard it was watching this other family grow". As if it makes sense to bash all their heads in. A BABY! Even serial killers don't kill babies! So he describes the worst most horrific serial murder one can imagine and then Explains it away with the poor kid being neglected. That's lame. And silly.

And then Well, of course his great great grandson is also a child killing psychopath! He slits the throat of a young girl!! Jesus H! These writers are nuts! And again, well, because he felt slighted. Do they really think that's how it works??? If 1/10ths population killed over being slighted!!! Much less serial killing much less children! Much less a baby!!! Makes me think they're sort of sick to enjoy writing this stuff with no sense. Silence of the Lambs makes sense! This doesn't.

If you're gonna create absolutely inconceivably monstrous serial murders, you should at the least have done enough research to know that those types of killers are not made, they are just born, and no One knows why. If it's a regular old murder, you have more leeway. But bashing in a babies skull. Ah no!

I'm not sure how many more I can watch this show!

Such a shame - the production value is good, the actors are great but so far not one has made sense. This one was disturbing. I guess if I tune out a bit and know it won't ad up and in Fact could be almost offensive actually to the sensibilities, and maybe If I chose to not watch the last 7 minutes...I can hang in there. Or I just watch Poirot again! None of those hold water either but nothing as base as this episode!