Moody Murder Mysteries

[Datepalm]

Wish there was more Endeavour, preferably attending more stogy Oxford office party murders. This business with glamorous Italian divas was far too much.

My new favorite that-is-so-random Midsomer episode is now the one with the village where all civil society appears to consist of a low-grade corrupt high-IQ society with complex relationships with a variety of warring local lepidopterists.

[Veltigar]

I just finished Endeavour season 7 and I need to vent. Glad to see that some among you have already seen it and were not as enthusiastic, but I myself must say that I thought it was absolutely rubbish from start to finish.

If this is how they are going to be from now on, I'd rather have them stop pumping out these half-arsed attempts at a murder drama. This show has never managed to get even close to the heights its reached in its pilot episode (still my favorite murder mystery episode ever), but now they are really pushing it. 

This season was riddled with plot holes, red herrings and just bizarre references to the supernatural. Not to mention that the season's climax was plucked from a bad Sherlock Holmes adaptation rather than a grounded murder mystery with some high-culture flourishes and an engaging backstory. Endeavour lost its way and I'm just floored that no one at ITV saw this coming. It's pretty much Rise of Skywalker levels of bad really.

I mean, after the second episode I was saying to the person I was watching this with, that these kind of murder drama's are the one type of show immune to streaming and/or illegal downloading. It doesn't make sense to watch them on your own, because for me, the greatest pleasure I have is watching the mystery unfold, pick out the killer in advance and speculating about it with my watch mate.

The very best episodes then, are the ones that manage to completely blindside you, but in hindsight make complete sense (e.g. I still love Endeavour's pilot because I was completely in the dark about the killer's identity until the very end and then when I rewatched it was so clear that they were building to that reveal). The worst episodes on the other hand, are those in which the series counts on nothing but pure shock value and pulls out random reveals just so that you are shock by their resolution... Utterly infuriating, the whole point is that you can solve them in advance if you interpret the clues correctly. Random arse-pulls are the last thing I fucking want to see and Endeavour's season 7 was full of it:

Spoiler

Just a quick list:

1. The supernatural is real? It must be in universe because that girl saw pieces from her brother's equipment in the cellar of the final house
2. What are the odds that the misogynistic scientist from the episode who killed Naomi Bennet also just happens to have no alibi for the evening Molly Andrews was murdered? It was new year's eve!!! Didn't the bloke spend that time with his wife? 
3. A copy cat killer appearing out of fucking nowhere? Just because discovering the body of the first victim spoke to something latent in him? Really fuck you Morse.
4. How the fuck do we explain the alibis the serial killer had for the first murder? Not to mention that the set-up (jilted lover killing in a fit of passion, doesn't really fit with a cannibalistic serial killer?
5. The most convoluted God-awful insurance scam which doesn't make sense at all. It's not lucrative enough, it's a bitch to engineer (what are the odds that the lady in the college falls exactly on that fucking statue) and just way to risky to make sense. It's so complex with so many moving bits and pieces that you can't stake a criminal career on (did he pretend to be a fucking faith healer with everyone?). And even if you do, you wouldn't have your fucking name on every piece of paper. How did the cops not notice this earlier?
6. What are the fucking odds that the insurance fraud and the serial killer get connected? I mean, how odd that he chooses to live in the house of the insurance victim and that Morse just so happens to send Strange there at the exact right time and that the fucking serial killer doesn't close the door?
7. Where was the serial killer after setting fire to the house. He was 10 right? what the fuck did he do all those years? Is it that easy for a 10 year-old to get off-grid and if yes, why would he only just now start murdering people? He was already committing arson and blinding dog at 10, so why did he wait 15 years for his next step?
8. How did the serial killer find out about his sister all of a sudden?
9. What on earth was Morse's plan in Italy? Like, arrest some Italian citizens and kidnap them to the UK for trial? This is the 1970s you cunts. This would not have gone down that easily back in the day (note, where did Morse get that Webley from? He just smuggled it all the way? And Thursday did it as well?)
10. Why did Thursday and Morse get a fallout all of a sudden. It seems like they just had one for no reason other than the writing needed them to act out-of-character all of a sudden
11. Ludo is clearly not dead. I don't know whether he'll return as Hugo de Vries, but fuck what a stupid character.
12. Why did Vittoria and Ludo get involved with Endeavour. He wasn't on their case yet and there really is no discernible benefit they got from starting that relationship. Nonsensical, just like all the rest of this stupid plot.

 Is it so difficult to make a good series about all of this? All I want from Endeavour are good self-contained murder mysteries, a slow trickle of nods and character growth towards the Inspector Morse character and a relationship between him and

Spoiler

Joan Thursday preferably to last for the rest of the series, so we can leave it up to our own devices how Morse ended up alone. They have been fucking teasing us about this since season 1. Get it fucking over with already.

 

[RedEyedGhost]

I've watched Wallander, but didn't love it.  Just finished Young Wallander, and thought it was great.  Hopefully it gets more episodes.