Endeavour 18th Feb

[45156]

I didn't see this thread and posted my views on the more generic thread - but my view is "all of the above" - they could have done a lot better with just a little thought and some more accurate historical advice.  Unusual for Endeavour, as it is known for its high production values and lack of anachronisms.  Unless, of course, they are there, and we as railway enthusiasts and modellers just miss them, and out there, is an aviation expert who can pick up on his or her subject, ditto for buses etc etc..

 

I will just add, that I have in the past spoken to one of the historical advisors on the Bluebell at some length about this very topic, and he said that quite often the researchers and runners agree something pretty accurate to the period and setting (eg a rural branch with a couple of non corridor period coaches and a tank loco) only for the brief to be thrown out of the window when the big guns arrive and demand something competely out of keeping such as a Bulleid pacific on a rake of green MK1s as it "will look better on screen".

[chris p bacon]

Forget the railway foul-ups and the stereotypical trainspotter with a time machine to purchase stock not in production at the time, it was a stroke of genius to feature Crossroads! 

 

 

Episodes of Endeavour always have a references to other works.

 

There's been Kate Bush's 'Hounds of love' (It's in the trees...it's coming..) from the one with the tiger as well as a nod to Terry Pratchett where Insp Thursday says he was given advice by Commander Vimes (of the Watch in Discworld)

 

A few others I can't think of right now.

[40F]

Mentioned those earlier, but our posts prove they were difficult to see, given we both have completely different numbers!

 

I thought they were quiet clearly visible.

[sem34090]

Or, more likely for me, difficult to remember exactly!

[Wheatley]

All this post has managed so far is to prove that train spotters / railway enthusiasts / whatever are a bit weird and self obsessed.  

 

It's a drama, made for dramatic entertainment, and as drama's on British TV go it's a very good one. You can't turn 2017 Oxford into 1968 Oxford accurate in every detail so there are compromises which 99% of the audience won't notice.I'm sure that elsewhere there are academics tutting about the stereotypical portayal of academics (who also seem to be a fairly obnoxious and bloodthirsty bunch according to Endeavour/Morse/Lewis) and the inaccurate portrayal of how the Oxford Collegiate system works, and retired policemen bemoaning all the bits of police procedure which weren't quite right too. I bet you didn't notice any of those. 

 

Perhaps you'd all rather they put the money into something which is cheaper to make, gets higher ratings and makes more advertising revenue like "Britain's Got Talent" ?

[Fat Controller]

All this post has managed so far is to prove that train spotters / railway enthusiasts / whatever are a bit weird and self obsessed.  

 

It's a drama, made for dramatic entertainment, and as drama's on British TV go it's a very good one. You can't turn 2017 Oxford into 1968 Oxford accurate in every detail so there are compromises which 99% of the audience won't notice.I'm sure that elsewhere there are academics tutting about the stereotypical portayal of academics (who also seem to be a fairly obnoxious and bloodthirsty bunch according to Endeavour/Morse/Lewis) and the inaccurate portrayal of how the Oxford Collegiate system works, and retired policemen bemoaning all the bits of police procedure which weren't quite right too. I bet you didn't notice any of those. 

 

Perhaps you'd all rather they put the money into something which is cheaper to make, gets higher ratings and makes more advertising revenue like "Britain's Got Talent" ?

I recollect reading that a lot of what is supposedly Oxford is actually filmed in St Albans; the streets of Oxford being too busy with tourists, at least some of whom will doubtless be on a 'Morse' tour.

It is perfectly normal, when watching/reading someone else's interpretation of something of which you practice, to be aware and critical of any anomalies. It's not confined to railway enthusiasts; a neighbour was very critical of aspects of a BBC drama about a 1950s/60s current affairs programme. She had some reason, having been a Production Assistant on Panorama in the days of Richard Dimbleby and Paul Fox.

I still remember going to see the first 'Mission Impossible' at the Silver Screen in Folkestone; you could barely here the dialogue for peals of laughter from the audience, who were mainly Eurotunnel staff.

p.s.

Did I imagine an 'S160' in at least one shot?

[F-UnitMad]

 

It is perfectly normal, when watching/reading someone else's interpretation of something of which you practice, to be aware and critical of any anomalies. It's not confined to railway enthusiasts; ....

Agreed; being an HGV Driver for 25 years, I tended to have a somewhat 'jaundiced' view of "Stobart Trucks & Trailers" in particular, with it's overwrought style of dramatic presentation of what are mostly mundane, everyday situations in road haulage. "Supertruckers" isn't quite so bad in that respect, but still tries to make a crisis out of every small drama. 

Other programmes can be just as bad for anomalies; I watched "Joe Maddison's War" (Kevin Whately) recently, and the amount of times they acted as if there was no Blackout at all during WW2 was incredible. I did a fair impression of ARP Warden Hodges from Dad's Army, shouting "Put that light out!!" at the telly!!!

[wombatofludham]

I must admit to spotting a number of architectural and street furniture gaffes during most dramas, but I'm in grave danger of revealing that, whilst not a train spotter per se, I am a paving and bollard spotter.

 

Best unintentional street furniture gaffe, and probably something the producers couldn't avoid, was in Foyle's War when during a car chase you could clearly see a Hastings Pay and Display machine behind the chase car. Other regulars, and again something little can be done about, are overly clean buildings (town centre buildings were really only cleaned up in the 1980s onwards), the wrong kind of street lights and of course, UPVC windows.

 

People will only notice what they are familiar with and I suspect it must be getting increasingly difficult for producers to try outside filming historical drama without making some compromises.

[Reorte]

All this post has managed so far is to prove that train spotters / railway enthusiasts / whatever are a bit weird and self obsessed.  

 

It's a drama, made for dramatic entertainment, and as drama's on British TV go it's a very good one. You can't turn 2017 Oxford into 1968 Oxford accurate in every detail so there are compromises which 99% of the audience won't notice.I'm sure that elsewhere there are academics tutting about the stereotypical portayal of academics (who also seem to be a fairly obnoxious and bloodthirsty bunch according to Endeavour/Morse/Lewis) and the inaccurate portrayal of how the Oxford Collegiate system works, and retired policemen bemoaning all the bits of police procedure which weren't quite right too. I bet you didn't notice any of those. 

 

Perhaps you'd all rather they put the money into something which is cheaper to make, gets higher ratings and makes more advertising revenue like "Britain's Got Talent" ?

Only up to a point. I expect a reasonable effort where practical, and where it's not practical to try to avoid needing such a scene in the first place - up to a point. Obviously a line needs to be drawn somewhere, a Victorian railway scene with an 800 in it would start making even the most railway-unenthusiast shake their head. So I expect an effort made so that the at least casually knowledgeable won't complain too much, otherwise it's just starting to look sloppy, and being sloppy with "so what, most people won't notice" is simply not bothering to make an effort. I think most people will accept you're not going to get it dead accurate without access to a time machine, but when I notice a rather lazy anachronism or error in one area I start thinking "are you relying on me being completely ignorant in other areas?"

[Dunsignalling]

All this post has managed so far is to prove that train spotters / railway enthusiasts / whatever are a bit weird and self obsessed.  

 

It's a drama, made for dramatic entertainment, and as drama's on British TV go it's a very good one. You can't turn 2017 Oxford into 1968 Oxford accurate in every detail so there are compromises which 99% of the audience won't notice.I'm sure that elsewhere there are academics tutting about the stereotypical portayal of academics (who also seem to be a fairly obnoxious and bloodthirsty bunch according to Endeavour/Morse/Lewis) and the inaccurate portrayal of how the Oxford Collegiate system works, and retired policemen bemoaning all the bits of police procedure which weren't quite right too. I bet you didn't notice any of those. 

 

Perhaps you'd all rather they put the money into something which is cheaper to make, gets higher ratings and makes more advertising revenue like "Britain's Got Talent" ?

I don't think the criticisms stem from them getting a few railway things wrong (which I consider inevitable), but that they pretty much didn't get ANY of it right in this case. 

 

I have a high regard for Endeavour and its predecessors, and my own reaction is more a matter of disappointment rather than anger.

 

John

[PhilH]

Apparently the series regularly gets in excess of 4.5 million viewers...it's difficult to believe that more than 0.00001% of those picked up on any of the above.

[45156]

Apparently the series regularly gets in excess of 4.5 million viewers

Not including the viewers who use a PVR or get it on the ITV hub - so to those still to view, it's a good story, and our spoilers are not really a big complaint,

[geoffers]

What amazes me is Endeavour's success in pulling the girls, especially given the elder Morse's bad luck in doing so. Last night he was at it again - just one lighted cigarette and she was all fired up and he had a night of entertainment.  In 1968 the girls used to run away from me but there again I usually had a Brownie 127 around my neck.

[RJS1977]

To be honest, had it been set somewhere on the Southern, particularly the Western Division, then those sequences would have been almost accurate if you rolled the date back until you get before July 1967.

 

Another note: the brief shot of the haulage contractors yard also appears to have been shot at Quainton Road.

 

It was - I've just been looking at Quainton Road on Google Satellite view (for work purposes, honest!) and recognised the green Nissen huts.

[bgman]

I quite enjoy it.

[Captain Kernow]

I quite enjoy it.

Endeavour?

[RJS1977]

All this post has managed so far is to prove that train spotters / railway enthusiasts / whatever are a bit weird and self obsessed.  

 

It's a drama, made for dramatic entertainment, and as drama's on British TV go it's a very good one. You can't turn 2017 Oxford into 1968 Oxford accurate in every detail so there are compromises which 99% of the audience won't notice.I'm sure that elsewhere there are academics tutting about the stereotypical portayal of academics (who also seem to be a fairly obnoxious and bloodthirsty bunch according to Endeavour/Morse/Lewis) and the inaccurate portrayal of how the Oxford Collegiate system works, and retired policemen bemoaning all the bits of police procedure which weren't quite right too. I bet you didn't notice any of those. 

 

Perhaps you'd all rather they put the money into something which is cheaper to make, gets higher ratings and makes more advertising revenue like "Britain's Got Talent" ?

 

I think the historical anomalies jar more with me in Endeavour (particularly this series) because the radio announcements fix the date so precisely. It's less of an issue in something like Heartbeat where the dates are less precise (partly because Heartbeat lasted longer than the 60s did!).

 

Much in the same way as if most of us see a layout described loosely as "Transition era" in a show guide, we would expect a rather fluid dateline and not raise an eyebrow at say a King (withdrawn by 1965) crossing a level crossing in front of a Mk1 Escort (introduced 1968). But both would raise eyebrows if the show guide said the layout was set on the day England won the World Cup.

[hmrspaul]

 Other regulars, and again something little can be done about, are overly clean buildings (town centre buildings were really only cleaned up in the 1980s onwards), the wrong kind of street lights and of course, UPVC windows.

 

Sorry, disagree this was a decade earlier. When I was a student in Liverpool several buildings were power cleaned. The old building the Byrom Street part of the Poly used 

(in the block with the Central library, art gallery etc. ) was changed from black to off white in c1971 - the most dramatic change, but others were being done at that time. I do agree that buildings were very dark until the late 1960s.

 

Paul

 

PS I do agree there are many horrific railway mistakes - the one I noticed was the first time I saw a Heartbeat and couldn't understand why one of my favourite SR 4-6-0s was in an accident on the North Yorkshire Moors. It was only later I realised that Aidensfield was in an alternative universe.

Edited February 21, 2018 by hmrspaul

[alfsboy]

My wife noted the comment by the girl cop  "men and trains"  and said "at least they got that right "

[Captain Kernow]

Yeah, what is it about men and trains?

[Steamport Southport]

I don't think pointing out anomalies in TV or movies is strange at all. There are actually hundreds of websites dedicated to it and I doubt all of them are ran or frequented by "weird trainspotters". There are even TV series about mistakes and not just It'll Be Alright On The Night with Denis Norden.

 

What about films where WWII soldiers are wearing digital watches or a Roman chariot has a fire extinguisher in plain view? The latter was in Gladiator, as was a jet airliner. Yet if you point out a train is wrong then you are weird? Not really.

 

 

 

 

Jason

Edited February 22, 2018 by Steamport Southport

[wombatofludham]

Sorry, disagree this was a decade earlier. When I was a student in Liverpool several buildings were power cleaned. The old building the Byrom Street part of the Poly used 

(in the block with the Central library, art gallery etc. ) was changed from black to off white in c1971 - the most dramatic change, but others were being done at that time. I do agree that buildings were very dark until the late 1960s.

 

Paul

 

PS I do agree there are many horrific railway mistakes - the one I noticed was the first time I saw a Heartbeat and couldn't understand why one of my favourite SR 4-6-0s was in an accident on the North Yorkshire Moors. It was only later I realised that Aidensfield was in an alternative universe.

Might have been the 70s in Liverpool but it wasn't really until the late 70s and early 80s in the West Midlands that there was a major effort to clean up buildings, I remember seeing Lloyds Bank on the Bridge in Walsall being blasted clean when I was a Planning Student in the early 80s, and I seem to recall some buildings in Birmingham only being cleaned when the City Council had a Damascene conversion and pedestrianised New Street. Until the collapse of heavy industry in the Black Country in the mid 80's there was very little effort paid to cleaning the environment and buildings as the levels of pollution would have made the work pointless. Of course, until the late 70s the West Midlands was a booming area and didn't get much Government assistance with funding clean-ups, again it was the collapse of the steel and heavy industries in the 80s that saw the Government throwing money at the Midlands to try and clean up the area to attract new businesses. Remarkably, it has largely paid off.

 

I suppose like most things the dates are a moving feast, depending on local authorities and Government priorities.

[Compound2632]

Endeavour has numerous scenes shot in rather unlikely corners of Oxford in relation to the action - New College Lane being a favourite. The Cotswold stone glows golden - it was certainly black in the early 1980s.

[Dunsignalling]

I think the historical anomalies jar more with me in Endeavour (particularly this series) because the radio announcements fix the date so precisely. It's less of an issue in something like Heartbeat where the dates are less precise (partly because Heartbeat lasted longer than the 60s did!).

 

Much in the same way as if most of us see a layout described loosely as "Transition era" in a show guide, we would expect a rather fluid dateline and not raise an eyebrow at say a King (withdrawn by 1965) crossing a level crossing in front of a Mk1 Escort (introduced 1968). But both would raise eyebrows if the show guide said the layout was set on the day England won the World Cup.

Given that the Kings were all withdrawn in 1962, the credibility gap is somewhat widened.

 

On a personal basis, I would exclude the Mk.1 Escort, Mk.2 Cortina, the Capri and Mk.4 Zephyrs/Zodiacs from "transition era" set-ups on the grounds that they only arrived right at the very end of the period. Also, any of the distinctive "coke bottle" shape Vauxhalls, which only started to emerge in 1967. Worth bearing in mind, too that the earliest Transits only date from 1965. 

 

John

Edited February 22, 2018 by Dunsignalling

[exet1095]

Endeavour has numerous scenes shot in rather unlikely corners of Oxford in relation to the action - New College Lane being a favourite. The Cotswold stone glows golden - it was certainly black in the early 1980s.

As far as I know, apart from Queen’s, it’s not been cleaned since I was a student from 1985-88. This century, I was also a Fellow of Hertford; the rear elevation of the College, and the New College cloister and barn wall are as black as ever. Certainly this morning, when I walked through!

Edited February 22, 2018 by exet1095