#endeavour: oracle

[fanficrocks]

Train-ing/Training Tuesday

Continuing with the idea of new daily themes for the new year.

I put you on a train.

I got off.

The one that was all (or at least a lot) about trains and stations

A train alright, but mostly as a prop

Emo-turtleneck Morse in Italian trains*

*Correction - most likely a British train built in the pre-WW2 period (shout out to @3lysa for researching that)

[too-antigonish]

The Great S7 Rewrite: 7 July 2024 Update...

Posted this yesterday as a reblog update to the Great S7 Rewrite but now posting separately...

Here's a summary of where we are in the Great S7 Rewrite and some ideas moving forward:

Bone of Contention #1: Opera Rules

@astridcontramundum is in favor of keeping Opera Rules (voiceovers, framing scenes, etc.) as well as featuring more of the bespoke opera written for S7. I love her suggestion that Morse and Violetta have their own leitmotif! 

@oeuvrinarydurian suggested the possibility of leaning into Opera Rules—going a little crazy with tropes and techniques and being fanciful. 

I *love* the idea of leaning into Opera Rules and it’s actually what I’ve thought R.L. should have done all along. Now though, when I think of doing it within the context of the existing storylines we’re working with, I run into difficulties imagining it. The stories don’t fit into a “playful” world. That may simply be my own limitations. I’d love to see it done somewhere, sometime—especially somewhat whimsically and especially in the Morse universe.

One possibility I’ve considered is still having Opera Rules (voiceovers, framing scenes, etc. as well as opera tropes and themes), but actually taking them seriously instead of making them OTT. I’m heavily paraphrasing, but Astrid, in one of her stories has Bix say something like, “Real life isn’t like one of your operas,” to Morse. And it’s always struck me that for Morse, his real life *is* like one of his operas. His childhood? Being essentially orphaned. Evil stepmothers. Oxford? Almost marrying the princess so to speak. Being cast aside and cast out. What he sees at his job? Murder. Betrayal. Greed. Jealousy. Grief.

Basically, instead of making Morse’s life suddenly work according to Opera Rules, you could show how Morse has been living an opera all along by suddenly making all of the parallels visible.

Another thought that builds on Astrid’s idea about both Opera Rules and her later thoughts on the Towpath Case is to center the story on the opera that Morse attends at the beginning, "La Sposa del Demonio" (or "La Cura Per L'amore").  What if the story of that opera is reflected in the story arc of the Morse, Ludo, Violetta—whatever that ends up being? 

Bone of Contention #2: Ludo and Violetta?

Astrid likes the idea of having Violetta genuinely in love with Morse. 

@librawritesstuff brings up Violetta as “Unattainable Fantasy Woman” and points out that part of Morse’s attraction to her can be explained by the fact that by the end of S6, he’s been screwed over in just about every way possible. He’s ready to just say fuck it and go after something just because it’s there and he wants it for a change.

She then points out that the bigger problem with Ludo and Violetta lies in the implausibility of their storyline. What was the plan with Morse? Was there a plan? What’s the deal with the “pet policeman”?

Durian: Hates Ludo and Violetta as characters, but her big issue is with lack of logic in the whole opera storyline and too many implausibilities. Did Morse and Violetta meet at the opera by chance or design? Did Ludo know about them the whole time? What was the “pet policeman” about? Was Violetta actually involved in the nuts and bolts of engineering the accidents?

@fanficrocks Looks at making Morse’s relationship with Ludo more believable: less OTT as a character, maybe journalist friend of Dorothea, this gives a believable reason for him to be in all of the towns where the accidents happen and believable way for Morse to trace the accidents to him. Suggests possibly lose “pet policeman” concept and just have Ludo and Morse friendship poisoned by affair

Astrid again: Loves idea of Ludo as journalist; She notes with Violetta: Morse attaching to her out of recklessness seems reasonable but they didn’t make her attachment to him believable in any way. Also, while there was a reconciliation at the end of S6, Morse would have still been carrying resentment about having been pushed aside

I love the idea of Ludo as a journalist. I’m also intrigued by the possibility that he could be a music journalist. This would provide a plausible explanation for so many things—Dorothea introducing him to Morse, Morse actually wanting to become friends, his frequent travels, etc. 

It also gives me an idea re: the big opera La Sposa. What if it were a newly discovered opera? Morse goes to Venice for the premier. Ludo is there covering the premier but for some reason does not attend with Violetta. The plot of this opera could somehow also form a backdrop for the overall Morse, Ludo, Violetta story arc (story within a story).

I completely agree with Libra about the “Unattainable Fantasy Woman” thing for the initial two week affair. Where that starts to break down for me is with the extended affair and her cooking meals for them in their love nest at Beirut dancer’s apartment. There just seems to be no basis for their connection besides sex. Certainly not enough that he would be expecting her to leave Ludo and start a life together.

If we keep Ludo and Violetta as characters, which seems to be the way things are leaning, I do think they both more or less need personality transplants to justify Morse’s continued interest in them. I’m also with Astrid on having Violetta genuinely in love with Morse. I think they left it ambiguous in the show because they were playing on the whole idea of “If it's beautiful, does it matter if it’s real?” (“treason of images” ) thing, but it never really worked.

As for the overall implausibility of overall opera storyline: Yes!!!! It’s a mess. Every point raised by Libra and Durian is valid. Whatever happens with the storyline, those holes need fixing!

Bone of Contention #3: Towpath Storyline

Astrid: Universe within universe for towpath killings. Make it opera related. Gives more scope for Thursday/Morse conflict. Deranged fan? Thwarted performer? Also, while there was a reconciliation at the end of S6, Morse would have still been carrying resentment about having been pushed aside.

Durian: Eliminate clutter in Towpath mystery: get down to “is it or is it not Carl?” Leaves room to carefully craft the conflict between Morse and Thursday

I definitely agree that the clutter in the Towpath mystery needs to be eliminated. There was no clear throughline and the story pulled in too many directions. The specifics, though, depend on a lot of other decisions that need to be made first.

The conflict between Morse and Thursday definitely needs to be more carefully established. How do we get from the seeming reconciliation of Degüello to sniping at each other in Oracle? I completely agree with Astrid that Morse would have still been carrying resentment, but there needs to be something more to explain how it would erupt in such a public and painful manner.

Bone of Contention #4: The Episodic Storylines

Astrid: “I’d definitely keep those gay wrestlers!  I might feature them more! They could be another nod to it all. Thursday said wrestling was a lot like opera. Heroes and Villains. Faces and Heels.”

I love this comment! And I loved the gay wrestlers. They were just so unexpected and their presence was so understated in a way that I found hilarious. 

But it also gets at one of the themes of S7 that I did actually find interesting: How chance puts us on one side or the other, makes us winners or losers in the great game. Raga is the most blatant about it with politics, immigration, race, gambling, etc. but also with the Faces and the Heels in wrestling or the fate of  the firstborn son vs. the second born.

Ludo sums it up—while also perhaps referring to his crimes—by saying to Morse, “Life, death, rich, poor. It's all a roll of the dice, Morse. There's no reason to any of it. You're not responsible. Some people are just unlucky.” It's eerily reminiscent of Charlie and Conrad Greel in Ride.

OK, I think that's it for now. Please let me know if I misrepresented your comments in any way or missed something that was said! I assure you it was accidental.

[endeavourfiles]

Been busy. Here’s an offering to make up for it.

[too-antigonish]

I loved that they did this! And I remembered that there was this quote from an interview about it:

"Sally was a feminist pioneer and activist in the 70s, a graduate of Ruskin College, who helped organise the first national Women’s Liberation Movement conference in Oxford in 1970, and Emeritus Professor of Modern History at Goldsmiths, University of London.

The first episode – directed by Shaun Evans himself – is where these three generations, so intrinsically linked to the Morse stable, are all in evidence.

“I get to meet my mother played by my daughter. How confusing is that,” Abigail laughs. “It’s three generations in one but we are all the wrong age,” she smiles.

“It’s a very small scene. But we thought it would be a great idea, and Molly really enjoyed it even though she doesn’t want to be an actress."

-Ox in a Box, 4 Feb 2020

Apparently, Molly was 22 at the time.

Easter Egg in “Oracle”: Sally Alexander is the name of Abigail Thaw’s mother

[seeherdchen]

[oeuvrinarydurian]

I present to you: the moment it all goes to hell. In a tux.

Season (Series) 7: Oracle.

I’m watching an opera. I look hot.

I love this opera. I’m caught up in the —

Wait. Who’s the chick in the green?

I’ll just surreptitiously get an eyeful.

Fuck the opera.



[the-aleator]

endeavour musings, xvi

featuring: Terminus, s8e3 + why this better not be the end 1. WIN -- wut?. (Sidenote: I love the fact that Thursday calls her Winnie as a pet name. Pretty sure he does that in s6 too.) 2. The Bundy Clock scene. Yes, I do like the character exchange between Morse - Thursday afterwards, but it's one of the scenes where I think RL cheats at the expense of other characters to make Morse seem like a genius. (A previous example of this was in Oracle (s7e1), where Morse gets to explain to Thursday/Strange that the unique splaying of Professor Blish's fountain pen proves that it was him at the murder scene. Are fountain pens a historic topic that current audiences might not know? Well, yes. Is it something that Thursday + Strange would have known? Absolutely. [FYI, Thursday likely would have been taught as a child in the 1920s with a DIP PEN. He also has about 12 fountain pens on his desk in s1-3.] [Historical note: Handwriting as a means to identify criminals has been in practice by CID since the mid-1860s.] Again, a Bundy Clock would have been regular knowledge circa 1970 re bus riding, and would have been the kind of dogged police work that someone would check. I think this is lazy writing, and it's been happening more and more since s6. 3. We name-dropped 'Terminus' in Striker. 4. The Mystery Plot in this one is a bit of a stinker. Overly-convoluted, utterly implausible (maths do not work like that), and way too crowded. This is again an episode where multiple people are murdered in a particularly gruesome way to drive the plot forward, and I do Not Like it. Also, I gather they actually wanted to make a Slasher and TPTB said 'no' so they changed it to a Christie style big house in the country mystery but only half-heartedly so it's a weird conglomeration that doesn't really work. They took the setting of a Christie but didn't either understand / care how they actually work, which is about 1. social commentary 2. the Twist which is a clear reveal 3. justice in a communal setting / judgement. So it's a bit of a mess. 5. The number of female murderers in this show is actually ridiculous. Also: the number of serial murders in Oxford is doubly ridiculous. The implausible deus ex machina rescue at the end is trebly ridiculous and makes me yearn for Degeullo. 6. The Salvation of this Entire Episode rides on Thursday's shoulders: the scene where he tells Morse off for "checking their homework," where he calls him out for being a drunk, where he gets yelled at by Win, where he talks to Bright re Sam, where he talks to Creech, the Sun Comes Up scene. I do give 100+ pts to Morse for the "stop" scene in the bar after Thursday has called him on his drinking.

7. WIN. I don't appreciate that basically all the character development in this ep got given to Joan instead of Win. Also, none of these scenes work for me at all: I feel like RL has here a character who's just sort of a stock 1950s housewife trope and then he's trying to add emotional depth but it doesn't cohere so it just turns into a bizarre mess both of flat character and emotional responses that seem way off character. Part of it is we never see Win's response to Sam by herself, it's only ever through her response to Thursday. I understand that Win is supposed to have had it in this episode but honestly that's happened in s5, s6 and s7 so far so I just want Win to get some real character development and behave like an actual woman with character grit intregrity and a brain in her head, including: life experiences being bombed in the Blitz and working in the ATS and raising two children and generally being an awesome woman and mom with a great husband (who admittedly has a saving people thing). [This TED talk brought to you by the women of the-aleator's family who ironed their towels, did professional jobs, did their husband's accounts, travelled the world, and kept their families together through multiple deployments.]

8. I really don't get the people who say that the Strange-Joan plotline is just like Joan marrying her Dad. But I also agree that I don't love it as a romantic end-game, and that's definitely where we are going.

9. Shaun Evans / RL and I are going to have to disagree on Morse's drinking. Is Book!Morse a functional alcoholic? Yes, although how much given it was the 1970s.... Is Thaw!Morse? More arguable. Do I believe in the character progression that Endeavour is now a full-on non-functioning alcoholic as a result of Venice, is going to somehow "improve" his drinking enough to become the DCI Morse in the next 15 years? Characterisation marches on, but that seems like a real leap. 10. The Bright scene about staying with Thursday is so lovely and sad. Dorothea coming to Thursday's house at the drop of a hat is also lovely and sad but in a different way: he knows her well enough to know she'll want whiskey instead of tea. (Somebody please start a special AA/therapy group for all of these characters!) 11. {This post is getting LONG, so I'm going to placehold my notes on: intimacy, understanding, memory, secret relations for another post}. Last quick notes:

-As someone who lives in a place with more than 4' of snowfall every year, the fake snow / cold acting made me laugh.

-Also, Thursday's canonical father was a "devil with a drink," (why hello again Fred Thursday's CPTSD) and he implies he can't take care of Morse because of Sam; why won't you accept you've been adopted Morse (he just tidied your coat for you accept it)

-Strange calls the black Jag "his car" referring to Morse: are we supposed to think he's purchased it from the station? Or is just the one he always uses?? -Strange need to bite his pride and go hat-shopping with Thursday: he'll set him right.

-Dr DeBryn wins the best dressed for the 32nd episode.

[too-antigonish]

These must be from when Evans was directing Oracle. Win is with her co-worker Bridget (who is later murdered on the towpath) and they're dressed for the scene where they go to the wrestling together.

I wonder what they were filming at the same time that had Shaun in his tux? Or was he just, you know, randomly wearing it to work...

A couple of bts pics with Win - complete with bonus tux - for Thursday Thursday.

These pics are adorable

I think the photos are from Kati D but if anyone knows different please add to the post

[sircolinmorgan]

ENDEAVOUR | ORACLE

Directed by Shaun Evans.

[too-antigonish]

The Great S7 Rewrite

An attempt at summarizing the rocky ground on which we some of us stand following this rather epic post yesterday: Prophetic words from Morse in Oracle?

People had so many interesting things to say that I though it would be nice to keep this discussion public for now.

On the most basic level, Season 7 has two overarching storylines: 

Opera Storyline: The one with Morse, Violetta, Ludo,  and the mysterious accidental deaths

Towpath Murders: The one with Morse and Thursday fighting mainly over whether or not Carl Sturgis did it.

Then you have the episodic murders for each episode: 

Oracle: The math TV program, Dept. of Latent Potential, women’s lib conference, and  misogynist professors in Oracle

Raga: The Indian restaurant, restaurant critic, gay wrestlers, racist poker game organizing politicians in Raga

Zenana: The coming together of the opera storyline and the towpath murder storyline in Zenana.

If, theoretically, you wanted a do-over for S7, what would you need to consider? Below are some of the issues raised in discussion yesterday:

Bone of Contention #1: Opera Rules

S7 may or may not have been asking us to view its world according to “opera rules.” If it wasn’t, then the storylines were just outrageous. If it was, then they didn’t do an adequate job of either:

Signaling that we needed to see this world through that filter

Making the story robust enough that you didn’t *need* to see the opera references to “get” the storylines. (As Durian pointed out: Ride works even if you don’t realize that it’s Gatsby, but S7 doesn’t work if you don’t realize it’s opera. It doesn’t stand on its own.)

I think actual S7 tried to signal that we were in Opera World (#1) by: 

Using theatrical techniques (voiceovers, mise en scene/ tableaux, etc.) to signal that we were in opera world (i.e. heightened reality)

Using opera tropes

Using role reversal with the characters. I think that’s a big reason why the season feels so unsettling overall. Normally Morse is the one doggedly pursuing a hunch based on an obscure clue. This time it’s Thursday. Normally it is Thursday finding out that Morse didn’t check someone’s alibi. This time it’s Morse. Normally Morse and Thursday are calling the shots at the crime scene. This time DeBryn and Strange are having to put them in their place like squabbling children. Etc., etc.

Things in the show are “out of place” as well. (e.g. Thursday is at the early morning crime scene in Oracle instead of Morse. Morse is in Venice instead of Oxford.)

So the questions about Opera Rules are:

Do you keep the idea of Opera Rules for S7?

If you keep Opera Rules, how do you do a better job of signaling them?

If you keep Opera Rules, how do you make the story strong enough that people who don’t understand opera rules will know what’s happening? 

Do you just out-and-out tell people about Opera Rules?

Bone of Contention #2: Ludo and Violetta?

I have yet to hear from anyone who really likes Ludo and Violetta. If someone reading this does, I’d be fascinated to hear why. To say that I find them off-putting is being kind. Why is Morse attracted to two such unpleasant people? And not only attracted, but taken in by both of them? Normally Morse is attracted to girl-next-door types (Monica, Joan). Normally Morse has no time for snobs who name-drop and talk about themselves non-stop (Oxford Don stereotype). 

For me the disconnect lies not in the fact that he could be taken in. I think Astrid and Fanfic are very right about both Morse’s lack of wisdom when it comes to friendship and love, and well as his “secret” desire to have friends who perhaps share more of his interests. The leap I can’t make is that it would happen with these two specific people. Even taking into account that Morse is behaving “the opposite” of his usual way, I can’t see him being attracted to either of these two personalities. 

In the end, like Astrid, I like the *idea* of the Ludo and Violetta storyline but found the way it was played out too incongruous. So what to do? It seems like you can either retool Ludo and Violetta or replace them entirely. Which you choose I think depends on how you want to remake the story and how loyal you are to canon.

My first instinct is to replace them. I find both of them so repugnant, but I do find myself returning repeatedly to an idea that I had when I first watched Oracle, which was that Violetta might actually be more directly based on the Violetta from La Traviata.

She would be a woman from the “other side of the tracks” so-to-speak, but genuinely in love with Morse. You could also use Traviata’s bit where Violetta’s “betrayal” of Alfredo is actually self-sacrifice, etc. I’m not sure about Ludo, but it would definitely need to be someone that Morse would *actually* want to befriend and not someone as obvious as Ludo.

So the questions about Ludo and Violetta are:

Do you keep Ludo and Violetta?

If you keep them, how do you retool them? 

If you throw them out, what do you replace them with? 

Either way (new or retooled), how do you make Morse’s attraction to them believable?

Either way (new or retooled), do you use existing opera tropes/storylines as a basis for their story?

Bone of Contention #3: Towpath Storyline

It seems that there is pretty much universal agreement on keeping the Towpath Murders as a storyline. Also, there is pretty much unanimous approval for the idea of an earlier and more prominent role for Dorothea in the case. Durian points out that this could also have the side effect of reducing some of the tension between Morse and Thursday. 

Disagreement arises over two main elements:

Too many things going on in the storyline

How the conflict between Thursday and Morse is handled.

I’m in agreement on both of these things. In terms of the number of things going on in the storyline you have the whole is it or isn’t it a serial killer, the ESP angle, the flasher thing, the copycat killer, all of the animal imagery and later wolf imagery, the blood drinking, and much, much more. It could work if it all tied together coherently, but it doesn’t—at least for me. It feels like I can sort of see what they were going for, but that they definitely didn’t get there. There needs to be a unifying theme.

With the conflict between Thursday and Morse, my problem is not so much that they have the conflict, but that it comes seemingly out of nowhere. We jump from the reconciliation of Degüello to the petty arguments of Oracle with nothing in-between to explain the change. It’s not that I didn’t find the conflict between these two characters interesting or believable. It’s simply that there was nothing to explain it. Yes, you can say that Morse was becoming more of his own man, but that doesn’t seem adequate to me.

So the questions about the Towpath Storyline are: 

What elements would you throw out and what would you keep?

What would make a good unifying theme for the Towpath case?

What is the source of the conflict between Morse and Thursday? What sets it off?

How do we have Ms. Frazil on the case sooner rather than later?

How does Dorothea diminish tension between Thursday and Morse. 

Of the arguments between Morse and Thursday, what would you keep and what would you throw out?

Bone of Contention #3: The Episodic Storylines

I find it pretty telling that except for one brief mention, no one has strong feelings about the episodic mystery in Oracle. It definitely had less substance that the one in Raga, in part because it had to leave room for the establishment of the two big overarching stories. Personally, I found the sexism angle (the Women’s Lib Conference and Prof. Blish beating out the others for the spot on the tv show) more compelling than the ESP studies angle.

Durian mentioned that Raga, like the Towpath Murders, has way too much going on (Indian restaurant, Oberon Prince and his ex-wife, the gay wrestlers, the racist poker game, the return of the evil beautician, two stabbed teenagers, etc.) Fanfic raised the interesting idea of making the conflict in Raga more of a family conflict, using the political situation with East and West Pakistan (Bangladesh) as a focus.

So the questions about the Episodic Storylines are: 

What elements would you throw out of Oracle and what would you keep?

What elements of Oracle would you change entirely?

What elements would you throw out of Raga and what would you keep?

What elements of Raga would you change entirely? (e.g. changing to internal family conflict)

OK. I'd love to hear thoughts on all of this!

[fanficrocks]

Wild (and not so wild) animals in Endeavour and the Morseverse

In Endeavour, we get

The pelican that's an albatross around Bright's neck in S6 (Apollo)

Jeremiah the parrot in S4 (Lazaretto)

The tortoise at some point in S6 (if I remember correctly)

The tiger in S3 (Prey)

Fred's canaries in S7 (Oracle)

But the original Inspector Morse seems very light on the pet and/or wild animals.

And in Lewis, we have the one instance where Lewis ends up (at least temporarily) adopting a victim's cat. Interestingly, that is an episode written by Russel Lewis.

Is there a connection between Russ and the wildlife?

See what happens when there is no new content to distract?

[ogiltig-haj]

Hello,

due to circumstances I am here to ask for your blessing to marry your offspring, the-crowhaj. I promise to cherish his existence and support his wild endeavours in science, as well as support his children. My intentions are nought but pure and full of love and silliness.

Yours sincerely,

@the-valhaj :)

YEESSSSSS!!!!!!!!

Does @the-crowhaj know about this?

lemme check... *looks through oracle*

I mean what does our child get out of it anyway? What kinda deal are u offering darling?

They seem to want to marry them. Ill help with anything if i-

No.

I mean this doesn't benefit my child so no.

Love is a useless frivolity, not to mention icky.

2/4 void haj convinced

[girl4music]

Gabrielle’s “gift of prophecy” characteristic was a lot more prominent in the dialogue in this script. They still brought it up every now and again in the show that she believed she was an Oracle but it wasn’t a huge plot point like it was in the original script of the episode in trying to convince Xena to take her along because she’d be “very valuable” to her in that way. I like that they never made a big deal about it in the final production but it was still something that she believed about herself. That left it up to us to decide whether it was true or not and with the foresight she had in ‘One Against An Army’ of Xena being killed, it was very possible she could be an Oracle or a Clairvoyant.

But if this is indeed the original script for ‘Sins Of The Past’, it’s interesting how that was a bigger plot point. In actual fact it ended up being Xena that had visions that could predict the future later on in the show. Not Gabrielle. Xena seemed to possess many psychic abilities actually. Most of which she learned from Lao Ma through her book of wisdom. But a fair few of them were also just innate within her. The visions were one of them that she just seemed to naturally manifest at the start of Season 4 once Alti had shown her her future of dying on the cross alongside Gabrielle. After that, she seemed to get those visions quite frequently. Including visions of the past. They weren’t memories, they were visceral retroactive visions. Retrocognition is what they’re called. Whereas the future visions are called precognition. Either way, it was still psychic ability that she already possessed and so wouldn’t be of any value.

Which begs the question - what did Gabrielle have of “value” to bring to Xena in travelling with her and helping her in her endeavours for the greater good?

In this script they used the characteristics of the “gift of prophecy” and “good cooking” as incentive valuables. But there was no such mention of either in the episode.

Gabrielle did not have to convince Xena to take her along with her. She did not have to prove her “value” to Xena at all. Xena just took her along. I say it was that mutual feeling of being an outsider. Of not belonging.

XENA: “You know, I’m sending you home in the morning.”

GABRIELLE: “I won’t stay home. I don’t belong there, Xena. I’m not the little girl that my parents wanted me to be. You wouldn’t understand.”

XENA: “It’s not easy proving you’re a different person.

*Gabrielle eyes her curiously, Xena throws a bundle of blankets at her, gestures to the other side of the fire*

You can sleep over there.”

“Value” was never really the incentive for Xena. Meaning it wasn’t what made Xena want her keep Gabrielle around. Connecting was. What Gabrielle provided Xena was someone to connect with. So I definitely prefer what they ended up with as opposed to this original script (if it is real) because there is this quiet nuanced subtext of THIS IS QUEER all throughout Season 1 and no matter how much they tried to spin it that way, Xena did not view Gabrielle as a “kid”. Yeah, she may have reminded her of herself when she was that age… but at no point did Xena ever see Gabrielle as a child. And that played perfectly into her immediate attraction to her in the first episode and why she was a lot more interested in her than she was ever letting on.

It was that soulmate connection that they had between them. They had found their missing “other half”. They just didn’t know it. That also had to be discovered. So I like what they ended up doing with ‘Sins Of The Past’ compared to how it allegedly originally started out. And (if it is real) it does confirm they hadn’t planned it. None of the writers even remotely contemplated this. It just serendipitously ended up as a very queer narrative. Or maybe it was destiny. I don’t know. But it works a lot better than what they were originally going to do with it when you consider the progression of their relationship.

Having a connection is much better than giving value. If they had done that instead, then the deep love between them wouldn’t have looked or felt as sincere as it did. The queer narrative started from the very first episode. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t put in there intentionally. What matters is that once it was pointed out to them, they took it, ran with it and never fucking looked back despite the studio consistently telling them to censor.

[morsesnotes]

I think one of the reasons S7 rubs people the wrong way is that S6 Morse is written so sensitively (even with all his snark) and has such a pitiful vibe about him. Then in Oracle he's suddenly full of confidence and is off in Venice having a random fling with a beautiful Italian woman. He's ragging on the team and engaging in adultery. He's like S5 Morse ramped up to 100.

And it's like...how did that happen? Who is this guy? I remember when I first saw it, I was still new to Endeavour and only had S6 for context. My parents put it on and we were so confused, wondering if we'd missed an episode.

I think giving him that development was an interesting concept and made sense if you think about the unresolved tension between him and Thursday in S6, but there was too much of a jump between the two seasons. Usually the new season starts with everybody recovering from the previous finale. With this one starting on New Years Eve and then ending a year later with three episodes it felt frustrating missing out on a huge chunk of these people's lives. Especially since the joy of watching Endeavour is how it takes its time. Even though S8 and S9 were also three episodes they felt much better paced.

I'm not sure how they could've made a more natural transition though. Maybe the talented fanfic writers here might have some ideas?

[too-antigonish]

Oh, me neither!

[scotianostra]

January 8th 1697 Edinburgh student Thomas Aikenhead was executed in Edinburgh.

This is a cracking, if sad tale, and shows you how religious beliefs can be a blight on our history.

So who was oor Thomas, a villain?, a murderer?, a smuggler?, or some enemy of the state? No Thomas’s crime was blasphemy who took the lord’s name in vain…….this would be comic if it wasn’t for the tragic fact that he was executed, unlike the man in Life of Brian, who uttered the words Jehova, Thomas complained that he wished he was warming himself in hell rather than that chilly night walking past the recently built Tron Kirk on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. Well that’s the simple story that the tour guides that take you round the Old Town will tell you, there is a bit more to it so I will bore you with a bit more of the detail. Thomas Aikenhead came from a well-to-do family in Edinburgh, his father being listed as a surgeon but more probably an apothecary, a dispenser of herbs and potions. Both his parents were dead by the time he became a student at Edinburgh University at the age of 16 or 17.

His mother had been a daughter of the manse, and you would think that would have made Aikenhead wary of challenging the established religion of the time, namely the all-powerful Church of Scotland, especially while still a student and under the constant gaze of professors, lecturers and, as it turned out, his fellow students.

These were the dying days of a curious period in Scottish history. Aikenhead would have been four when the ‘Wizard of the West Bow’ Major Thomas Weir was executed in 1670. Our own ghost hunter-member Leonard Low mentioned him in a comment already today. Weir was by day an extreme Calvinist but by night an incestuous Satanist and it takes no great leap of reason to see that an impressionable young boy might well have been affected by the trial and execution of a local celebrity that lived not far from him.

The 1680s was also the ‘killing time’ for the Covenanters when many died because of they worshipped their same god in differing ways!

Thomas was a keen student and an avid reader, he may or may not have known and Edinburgh bookseller, John Frazer, who had been prosecuted after admitting either reading, or being in possession of Charles Blount’s Oracles of Reason a book I know nothing about but gather it relates to Deism, which questioned the existence or more importanyly, non-existence of God or Satan, Frazer had repented ad as it was a first offence was sackclothed and jailed in the old Tolbooth for a number of months.

Anyway, Thomas had a friend, well he thought he had a friend, Murdo Craig, but Murdo, on the sly had been keeping notes on Aitkenhead, and his dalliances with blasphemous ideals, we know that because they formed a large part of the indictment against Aikenhead.

“Nevertheless it is of verity, that you Thomas Aikenhead, shakeing off all fear of God and regaird to his majesties lawes, have now for more than a twelvemoneth by past, and upon severall of the dayes within the said space, and ane or other of the same, made it as it were your endeavour and work in severall compainies to vent your wicked blasphemies against God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, and against the holy Scriptures, and all revealled religione, in soe far as upon ane or other of the dayes forsaid, you said and affirmed, that divinity or the doctrine of theologie was a rapsidie of faigned and ill-invented nonsense, patched up partly of the morall doctrine of philosophers, and pairtly of poeticall fictions and extravagant chimeras, or words to this effect or purpose, with severall other such reproachfull expressions.”

That was just for starters. Sir James Stewart of Goodtrees, the Lord Advocate of the day, had taken a personal interest in the case and he decided to throw the whole lot of Craig’s testimony at Aikenhead who was arrested in November, 1696, and charged under the Blasphemy Act of 1661 which carried the death penalty. He also charged Aikenhead under a more recent act, which made it a criminal offence to ‘deny, impugn or quarrel’ about the existence of God.The prosecution papers go on to record

“You have lykwayes in discourse preferred Mahomet to the blessed Jesus, and you have said that you hoped to see Christianity greatly weakened, and that you are confident that in a short tyme it will be utterly extirpate.”

For Mahomet, read Muhammad, could young Thomas be an Islam convert in 17th century Edinburgh, I very much doubt it, they just needed to make an example of the young student, and he knew by now that he was in very great trouble and protested in effect that he was guilty only of the sin of being youthful and had been led astray by the books he had read. He claimed to have repented of his anti-Christian beliefs and was once again a good Presbyterian. In this way he seems to have thrown himself upon the mercy of the court, but there was no mercy. On Christmas Eve, 1696, a jury found him guilty. Sir James Stewart asked for the death penalty and it was granted and “pronounced for doom,” as Scottish judges were still saying well into the 20th century in capital punishment cases. Aikenhead pleaded for his life to the Privy Council emphasising his youth, his dire circumstances, and the fact that he was reconciled to the Protestant religion. There was some support for the death sentence to be commuted from at least two councillors and two Church of Scotland ministers, but the General Assembly of the Kirk intervened, demanding that Aikenhead suffer

“vigorous execution to curb the abounding of impiety and profanity in this land”.

In his last letter to friends, written in the Tolbooth prison in Edinburgh as he awaited execution, Aikenhead at last gave a plausible explanation for his conduct – that he had been a disappointed seeker after truth. He wrote:

“It is a principle innate and co-natural to every man to have an insatiable inclination to the truth and to seek for it as for hid treasure. So I proceeded until the more I thought thereon, the further I was from finding the verity I desired.” In truth, in a repressed society the student had just gone too far in rejecting the doctrines of Christianity calling it “feigned and ill-invented nonsense”

Aikenhead went to his death on January 8, 1697, hanged on the scaffold at Shrubhill between Edinburgh and Leith. It is said that before he died he proclaimed that moral laws were the work of governments and men. In his hand as the noose was plced around his neck was the Holy Bible. The execution angered many people for many years afterwards. The great English historian Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote an account of the hanging and called the execution “a crime such has never since polluted the island.”He continued: “The preachers who were the boy’s murderers crowded round him at the gallows, and, while he was struggling in the last agony, insulted Heaven with prayers more blasphemous than any thing that he had ever uttered.”

There was other evidence of church authorities being present as Aikenhead died. He was the last man in Britain to be hanged for blasphemy.

According to Arthur Herman in his book “How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It”, the execution of Aikenhead was “the last hurrah of Scotland’s Calvinist ayatollahs” before the dawning of the age of reason in the Enlightenment.

Now we can all rejoice in The Enlightenment but a full 30 years later in the small town of Dornoch in Sutherland, Janet Horne was put on trial for the “crime” of having a daughter whose feet and hands were misshapen and who had herself given birth to a son with disabilities. She was the last woman in Britain to be burned at the stake for being a witch, her death bringing to an end the “burning time” when perhaps 4000 Scottish women were executed for the crime of witchcraft.

I thought I would add a wee bit more about Shrubhill in Leith, as most of us usually only regard Edinburgh’s Old Town, The Tolbooth, and Grassmarket as sites where executions took place. I can’t find out why Aikenhead was taken to, at what at the time, was a different town for his executions I did however find records of several taking place at the site, now student accommodation, but the site of Edinburgh's tram workshops and powerstation, but beforehand not many know that it was the site of he gibbet known as the Gallow Lee, literally the “field with the gallows”,

Bodies were buried at the base of the gallows or their ashes scattered if burnt. The most famous of those that met their end here was perhaps Major Weir, the Wizard of the West Bow.

1570- Two criminals strangled and burned to death.

1570 (4 October)- Rev. John Kelloe minister of Spott, East Lothian (near Dunbar) strangled and burnt for the murder of his wife

1664- Nine "witches" strangled and burnt

1670- Major Thomas Weir, the self-confessed warlock, strangled and burnt for witchcraft (almost the only self-confessed witch executed).

1678- Five "witches" strangled and burnt

1680- Part of the body of Covenanter David Hackston was hung in chains after his execution at the mercat cross in Edinburgh for the murder of Archbishop Sharp in 1679.

1681 (10 October)- Covenanters Garnock, Foreman, Russel, Ferrie and Stewart hanged and beheaded. Their headless bodies were buried at the site and their heads placed on the Cowgate Port at the foot of the Pleasance. Friends reburied the bodies in the graveyard of the West Kirk (St. Cuthberts). The heads were retrieved, placed in a box and then buried in garden ground at Lauriston. They lay there until 7 October 1726 when the then owner, Mr Shaw, had them exhumed and reburied near the Martyrs’ Monument in Greyfriars Kirkyard.

1697 (8 January)- Thomas Aikenhead, a 19-year-old theology student at Edinburgh University became the last person to be executed under Scotland’s blasphemy laws (and the last in Britain to be executed for that crime).

1752 (10 January)- Norman Ross, a footman, hanged for the murder of Lady Baillie, sister of Home, Laird of Wedderburn. The body was left to hang in a gibbet cage “for many a year” and became a local ghoulish tourist attraction.

Shrubhill House sits on the site now and houses up to 260 students, I wonder how many know of it's past?

Post mid 18th Century the Nor’ Loch was drained and the city expanded to the north by the building of the New Town with stone quarried from nearby Craigleith quarry. In such building sand was needed to add to the lime mortar and Gallow Lee proved to be just what was needed. The owner of Gallow Lee charged the builders to cart away the sand, containing the ashes and other remains of thousands of victims.