Endeavour, ITV, Sunday

The roaring success of the Endeavour pilot last January - more than eight million people watched it - made the commissioning of a full-blown series of the Morse prequel something of an inevitability.

And the first of a four-part series starting Shaun Evans as the young Endeavour Morse is broadcast on Sunday night on ITV.

In the first, Morse’s investigation into a student’s death, apparently by heart attack, get him busted back to general police duties. Humiliated and sidelined, he’s forced to solve the case from the sidelines. I’m guessing that his enquiries will taken him into the gleaming spires of the city.

The pilot of Endeavour was pretty good, actually, and that last shot, of Evans looking into a car rear-view mirror and seeing John Thaw‘s eyes staring back as Barrington Phelong’s signature music began to play, sent a bit of a chill down the spine.

Endeavour, with its alienated young lead, promises to be an altogether darker beast than the other Morse spin-off, Lewis, and each of the four episodes have been written by creator Russell Lewis.

The pilot featured numerous other references to Morse including a Colin Dexter cameo, and the new series features other characters from the original series. Evans has big shoes to fill, of course, it was a good idea to partner him with Roger Allam - we like him - as DI Fred Thursday.

Endeavour is on ITV—anyone else keep wanting to call it ITV1? - at 9pm on Sunday night.