The Oxford detective has to keep his eye on the ball in Sunday’s night episode, RadioTimes.com can reveal.
ITV’s Endeavour returns on Sunday with a brand new eighth series and, while Morse is back to solving crimes, it doesn’t look as though he’s particularly thrilled by his first case.
RadioTimes.com can exclusively reveal a teaser for Sunday night’s episode, in which Superintendent Bright (Anton Lesser) tasks Morse with providing round-the-clock protection to Jack Swift, a Oxford Wanderers player who has received death threats from the IRA.
“Football’s hardly my area of expertise. I have very little interest in the game,” Morse says, to which Bright replies: “Which is exactly why you’ve been chosen.
“The last thing we need is someone with stars in their eyes who’s going to be overwhelmed by the whole soccer razzmatazz. Better by far to have someone in place who is going to keep their eye on the ball as it were,” he added.
A frustrated Morse tells Thursday after the meeting that he would rather be investigating the death of Oxford college secretary Maggie Widdowson, who was killed after opening a package addressed to Professor Stamfield which actually contained a bomb.
“I just don’t want to be on a dead-end assignment when I could be helping you find out which lunatic blew up my old college,” he says.
Shaun Evans and Roger Allam reprise their roles in the Endeavour cast as Endeavour Morse and Fred Thursday once again for series eight, which is set in 1971 and will see Morse struggle with his inner demons after the death of Violetta.
“When we pick Endeavour up in February 1971 he is drinking too much, not coming into work, phoning in sick quite a bit. That’s what we see over the course of the whole season. That getting slowly worse,” Evans said about the drama. “I do think there is something really interesting in where we find him and how his misery manifests.”
Endeavour continues on Sunday at 8pm on ITV. Visit our TV Guide to discover what else you can watch tonight, or find all the latest news on our Drama hub.