"Endeavour Series 5 Episode 4 'Colours'" Topic

Warning: contains spoilers.

I don't ordinarily watch TV drama series, but stayed with this after coming across it while changing channels last night because the military theme caught my attention. The show is a period police procedural murder drama set in 1960s England, and this episode is set on an army base.

There's lots of contemporary military* and social flavour, but the main reason TMPers might want to watch or avoid it is that the murderer turns out to be a military historian who has (surprise, surprise!) a penchant for collecting Nazi memorabilia and weapons, fascistic leanings, and who (no surprise?) also happens to be… a wargamer (of sorts)!

There's a scene in which a detective interrupts our villain while he's playing with his toy soldiers on his wargames table, but despite his claiming that he's recreating Cannae the set-up just looked to me like a random gaggle of unidentifiable, individually-based figures. They might have been 30mm; it was hard to tell from the brief shot I saw.

I should also add that the baddie bears some resemblance to a wargaming friend of mine who's also an academic and a keen historical reenactor and collector of black powder weapons – but not Nazi paraphernalia!

*There are countless errors in the depiction of the 1960s British army, but I won't belabour you with them here; you can find some very detailed critiques of this and other aspects of the episode elsewhere online.

"Endeavour" is the prequel series to BBC's and PBS' British police series "Inspector Morse." It covers the development of Morse, whose first name is Endeavour, from a "beat" cop to a seasoned police detective in the Oxford area.

Military errors not withstanding, it is a favorite of my wife's and me.

Jim

I like his boss, Inspector Fred Thursday. Spot on for a depiction of a no nonsense DI of the time, with a host of 'bon mots'. Just like real life, many of the senior officers and experienced constables had seen active service in WWII, and had confidence in their actions. Morse is no slouch either. in Endeavour or Morse. Even when I joined, in 1973, there were still a few about. We had a uniform Chief Inspector who'd been at Arnhem.

Did you spot the easter egg? The fictional regiment has a plan of their battle at Umboto Gorge. 😀

Not sure if they had wickedly sharpened mangos in their collection….

I actually posted the OP on 'Historical Media' because its main point was obviously the show's character assassination of wargamers, which I thought would be of interest to the entire readership. The editor(s) have annoyingly moved it here simply because of its incidental references to the 1960s British army.

It was a great episode. "Endeavour" is one of the best shows I've seen in a long time. If it is any consolation, Morris dancers, trainspotters, and model railroaders get dinged in other episodes.