Endeavour (2012)

I loved the Inspector Morse books but somehow never warmed to the PBS series made from the series.  That has not stopped me from a devoted passion for the Inspector Lewis series, where Lewis, an ordinary cop with a lot of experience and a history with Morse--so he has learned a trick or two from the very best, is paired with James Hathaway, an Oxford graduate.  Somehow I like it better that the brainier cop is the one learning the ropes rather than the other way around.  Hathaway is a conflicted man--he was once in seminary, for reasons that we are not privvy to, nor do we know why he left.  He has no friends, one bad habit (smoking), and he prefers reading to the company of fellow humans.  He is not one to sit around a pub and chat, not even with Lewis.  In any case, I adore that series.

So along comes 'Endeavour', which is about the young Inspector Morse.  He is wary of alcohol (probably because of his father), earnest to a fault, unable to bend with the crooked ways of cops in the mid-1960's, an opera addict, and a man without much insight into the politics of the cop shop but a good sense of the politics of people.  He is described as a bulldog by one of the characters, and while it doesn't exactly fit, I can't think of a better analogy.  This is a wonderful prequel to the Inspector Morse who we already are very familiar with.  Recommended--stream it on PBS today.