Endeavour (TV Series) Lazaretto (2017) User Reviews

Morse and murder in a hospital setting

[blanche-2 · 8/10 · 4 September 2017]

Hospitals are often associated with death, but as Morse learns, some deaths are engineered.

Police informant Terence Bakewell is being guarded in the Fosdick ward of a hospital. Morse learns that there have been an above- average number of deaths in that ward, particularly Bed 10. The widow of one of those deceased, who was in a dispute with the hospital, was found murdered. Strangely, all of the patients in bed 10 seemed to be recovering well.

Then Bakewell himself is found dead, and the coroner finds a puncture wound in the body. Going back over the other bodies, the same puncture wound is found. Their attending physician, Sir Merlyn Chubb, comes under suspicion as well as a Dr. Powell, who is after his job.

The subplot concerns the missing Joan Thursday.

Good episode, and nice to see John Hopkins, Detective Scott from Midsomer Murders as the young and ambitious doctor. So sorry to learn that there are again only four episodes - it just started!

A classy mystery

[Sleepin_Dragon · 9/10 · 28 April 2017]

Endeavour keeps on getting better and better, it's hard to highlight standout episodes as the bar is so permanently set very high. Lazaretto however, is a particularly strong episode. One of the most poignant starts to an episode I can recall, the soft melodies lull you into a full sense of security, but the sinister goings on in bed number ten soon draw you in. So much going on, the complex case, the Prisoner on the ward, Thursday's fraught family life and the sudden collapse of Chief Superindent Bright mean you have to stay focused or you'll miss something important.

To quote the Sister 'Discipline in a Hospital is a matter of life and death,' how true, with this episode you get a true insight into just how strict hospital life was back then.

A very smart story, with plenty of character development, the re- appearance of Thursday's daughter added plenty of complications, but as is so often the conclusion is incredibly satisfying. The Carry on references are great, Fosdick Ward, Finisham etc.

Just a great episode. 9/10.

The Curse of Bed Number Ten

[Tweekums · 9/10 · 23 January 2017]

This episode opens with Morse attending the apparently routine death of an elderly woman; the only slightly strange thing is that she had been in dispute with the local hospital about some of her late husband's possessions, which she alleged went missing after he died there. Coincidentally a convict who is due to give evidence against dangerous gang leaders is due to have an operation in the same hospital and needs police protection. Inevitably Morse is one of the people assigned to protect him and while there there is an attempt on his life. Morse also hears a strange allegation from one of the patients… he claims that people put in bed number ten keep dying. The head nurse says this is no great mystery as those likely to die are given that bed as it makes it easier to remove any who do die without disturbing other patients. When the man who is meant to be under police protection dies there is a very thorough post mortem and it looks as though somebody injected him with a fatal dose on insulin. This leads Morse to suspect one of the medical staff; plenty of them have the opportunity but finding a motive won't be easy. As well as the investigation at the hospital Morse manages to track down DI Thursday's daughter; she implores him not to tell her parents where she is while he asks that she at least gets in touch to let them know she is okay.

The fact that this episode was mostly set within a single hospital ward where all the suspects and potential victims are together makes it different to most episodes; it also increases the sense of danger, especially after CS Bright is admitted to the ward and later placed in the infamous 'bed ten'. The story does rely on coincidence to a very large degree; shortly after the old woman died we get a man in police custody and then a senior policeman on the very ward where she alleges her husband's possessions were stolen and if that wasn't enough an earlier victim of 'bed ten' was the father of the woman Morse almost married… thankfully it is easy to forgive as the story was gripping. There were plenty of suspects to keep the viewer guessing; a senior doctor who can't hold his hand still, a more junior doctor keen to take his place, a matron who is behaving suspiciously as well as nurses who seem more interested in a doctor than the patients… why that would drive them to kill is less obvious though. There is also a nice red herring involving a Glaswegian hit-man that provides a bit of action. Things get a little bit melodramatic towards the end but still it was a satisfying conclusion. The subplot involving Joan Thursday didn't do much more than tell us that she was still alive and involved with a married man… the fact that she hasn't formally left the series does hint at things to come as does the tarot card we see at the end; whether they are connected we will have to wait and see. Overall a really solid episode with a higher death toll than usual.

Morse and murder at Cowley General

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 7 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 season was even better, with all the episodes being outstanding. Season 2 took a darker turn, but once again all the episodes were great (even with "Trove" having one of 'Endeavour's' most far-fetched and over-complicated endings, great episode otherwise), with the weakest one "Sway" still being very good, "Neverland" especially was exceptional and a show high-point.

Season 3 is considered by fans as nowhere near as good as previously. Will admit that it is not as good as Seasons 1 and 2, which had more believable stories and didn't try to do too much but count me in as someone who has still enjoyed the episodes and has found a lot to like, while finding "Coda" outstanding.

"Game" was such a terrific start for Season 4. "Canticle" was a very good change of pace, if a slight step down with a rushed and melodramatic ending. As far as Season 4 goes, it is hard to decide which is better between "Game" and "Lazaretto" as the best of the season, both of them being so great in their own way.

For me the only thing that let down "Lazaretto" was the Joan subplot. Potentially that was intriguing but it didn't add as much as it could have done and it was off-putting to see Joan act out of character and to me seem inconsiderate about her suffering parents (including how and whether it could possibly affect Thursday's future). To a lesser extent, Bright is somewhat under-utilised (especially when you compare this to when he got some great and much needed development in Season 3's "Prey"), though one does care what happens to him here.

Conversely, there is nothing that can be faulted with the production values. It is exquisitely filmed, with a hugely effective and almost terrifying claustrophobic bleakness and a marvellously eerie setting (who knew a hospital could be so eerie?). The music as always is hauntingly beautiful, the use of the Schubert Quintet was just sublime.

Writing, as has been said many times in my reviews for the previous 'Endeavour' episodes, is every bit as intelligent, entertaining and tense as the previous episodes and as the best of 'Morse', and, again, really liked the references, this time from the 'Carry On' films and the 'Morse' episodes "Promised Land" and "Dead On Time" (two of my favourite 'Morse' episodes).

Although the setting and atmosphere helps it a lot, the story is creepy, sometimes poignant and is thankfully simpler than the whole of Season 3 and the previous two episodes of Season 4 on the most part. With that being said, it has enough twists, turns and shocks to ensure that it doesn't get simplistic. Nothing's over-complicated here, not to the extent of some endings of previous 'Endeavour' episodes. The ending is very tense and suspenseful, but to me didn't descend too much into melodrama.

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, which has always been one of the finest things about 'Endeavour'.

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.

Overall, great episode. 9/10 Bethany Cox

"The Hospital Murders" anyone?

[gwenthoris · 8/10 · 10 September 2017]

When this episode aired I was coincidentally reading "The Hospital Murders" by Means Davis. A surprising number of parallels in the plots suggest to me that this theme is not unique to mystery stories set in hospital. Davis' work is in the public domain so please don't think I impugn its use - rather, I found the Endeavor Morse episode to be far more entertaining to me than the original.

Bed ten? Or eleven? Insulin? Or coniine? Sister Clodagh MacMahon? Or Miss Roenna Kerr? Davis' work, though dated (1934) and stodgy, has the characters and personal lives of the doctors and patients as primary focus, with the murders as the device which draws them together and produces the collision of their individual dramas resulting in the tension needed to carry the plot. In the Endeavor episode, the same plot device is used (this time of course with our old friends from Oxford City Police) to further our acquaintance with Morse, Thursday, Bright et. al. Thank goodness there are writers in the world whose works are not simply plodding slog-fests of Law-and-Order grade mundane "whodunit." It would not surprise me to find this plot thread in other "whodunits" of the genre. But I find Endeavor to be much more than that.

You can read "The Hospital Murders" yourself at Project Gutenberg (gutenberg dot org) - just search by author and title.

Good Story but Depends on Some Pretty Contrived Efforts

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 30 January 2018]

This episode revolves around events in a hospital. A particular bed, bed number ten, is where numerous patients have died in a relatively short period of time. Meanwhile the Chief Superintendent is admitted with a serious condition caused by an ulcer. There is also a man who is being kept as a key witness against organized criminals, portrayed in a previous episode. But it's the goings on at the hospital among doctors and nurses that are at the center of the main plot. Other peripheral things are that Morse makes an interesting visit and encounters the snobbish, ill tempered mother of his former fiancee. The series seems to be getting darker all the time.

Can't we just have a murder mystery

[polygnotus · 1/10 · 25 January 2017]

Is there a requirement now that the producers of modern detective mysteries have to abandon the genre for personality driven drama instead of the good ole whodunit format that we all came to see? First Sherlock, and now this tripe.

We were 30 minutes in before we actually got to a murder mystery. And every episode now it's more and more about the personal lives of the characters than the actual crime.

I'm sure there are some out there who like this shift. I'd be willing to wager there are far more who do not. The most successful crime series of all time, at least in the States, is Law and Order. And guess what. It never deals with the personal lives of its characters.

That's because, compared to the personal lives of the people surrounding a murder, the day to day of the cops is extremely boring.

How can you even think it would be more interesting to dwell on some cop's relationship with his wife than a bloke whose wife was just found strangled to death? Sherlock was OK at first because the character was so bizarre. It worked as long as there was a good mystery thrown in. And then, of course, Benedict Cumberbatch.

But as we've just seen, you take away the mystery, and you take away the reason for there to even be a detective.

The only interesting thing about Morse's character is his ability to detect where others fail. That's fun and interesting.

Watching characters coughing all the time or lying in bed with a stroke is just self indulgent crap. Fodder in the absence of good writing.

I was really excited when Endeavour started. It was my favorite new show. Now, it has strayed so far from what made it good, I can't even bother to watch it.