Bomb deal for grumpy Morse

HE’S still young, but Morse on Endeavour is already up there with Taggart as TV’s most miserable cop.

Is he auditioning for EastEnders? The bloke makes Chris Whitty seem chipper.

Glum Morse, inset, sipped Scotch from a hipflask, giving new meaning to “whisky sour”. What cheesed him off? The length of Reg Bright’s barnet?

Or just a plot that seemed as swollen as Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s goolies? Talk about over-stuffed and under-performing…

The main threads were the murder of an Oxford professor’s secretary and threats on the life of star striker Jack Swift, who got his own This Is Your Life.

Why? No Oxford football club was in the First Division in 1971.

The secretary was killed with a parcel bomb. The Angry Brigade and the IRA were suspected but the villains were… the Prof and Oxford Wanderers’ chairman, fashion boss Robert Fenner.

They’d killed her because she was blackmailing them over a plan to sell the collegeowned football ground to property developers. Bit drastic. Bombing your own office…

But why did the bomb need a timer? It exploded on opening.

Elsewhere, Protestant striker Jack was targeted by Loyalist terrorists… except they barely existed in ’71 and didn’t kill on the mainland (Scotland) till ’79, five years after the Provos.

Bah humbug.

Writer Russell Lewis popped his traditional in-jokes into the script – Fenner’s Fashions was the name of the clothing company in The Rag Trade (ask your nan).

The soundtrack misfired though. Three of the songs were from 1970 (including Max Bygraves’ abysmal flop Decimalisation). It was nice to be reminded of Eamonn Andrews – or Seamus Android as we used to call him – but none of it made sense.

THE Sweeney started in 1975 with original Morse star John Thaw as Jack Regan, a proper two-fisted, thief-taking DI.

Dear ITV, any chance we could have more “Get yer trousers on, you’re nicked” and less moping?