Yahoo News Endeavour will return with a bumper-length fifth series
Endeavour has only just finished its fourth series and it's already got a bumper run set for next year.
In a totally unsurprising move, ITV has recommissioned the critically acclaimed and much-loved Inspector Morse prequel series for a fifth go, also extending it from the usual four episodes to six.
The new series will be set in 1968 and is going into production in spring. Shaun Evans and Roger Allam will be reprising their roles as the young Morse and his senior officer, Detective Inspector Fred Thursday, respectively.
Also returning will be Dakota Blue Richards as WPC Shirley Trewlove, Game of Thrones' Anton Lesser as Chief Superintendent Reginald Bright and Abigail Thaw as Dorothea Frazil.
Marking the 30th anniversary of Inspector Morse on ITV, the first episode of the fourth series drew in 6.8 million viewers, its biggest audience since 2014 and up on the year-on-year average.
"The prospect of creating further chapters in Morse's secret history is always exciting, but expanding our quartet of investigations to a sextet gives us the opportunity to deliver a truly epic year in the life of Colin Dexter's immortal creation," enthused creator Russell Lewis.
Before the fourth series aired, Evans told Digital Spy that he's always refused to sign up for more than one series at a time on Endeavour.
"I just don't really like starting a job if I don't know where it finishes," he explained. "I want to know where something begins and ends, so that you can invest something in it."
His co-star Richards also praised Endeavour's forward thinking: "Just because a show is not set in the present day, that doesn't mean it shouldn't have female characters, or that it shouldn't have characters of other ethnicities."
Endeavour returns to ITV in 2018.
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