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Obsessed w/ British Detective Shows

miccaferoc said:
How about The Sweeney? There's some gritty 70's cop stuff in there.
"We're The Sweeney, son, and we haven't had any dinner!"
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And 'Get your Trousers on, you're nicked!' If you are going to watch 'The Sweeney', be advised there was a TV-Movie pilot named 'Regan' after the lead character and two films 'Sweeney!' & 'Sweeney II'.
And if you're going to watch 'The Sweeney' don't forget 'The Professionals' which admittedly is more of a 'cop show' than a 'whodunnit'.
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(with opening narration)
Britain's answer to 'Starsky & Hutch', but better. They've recently come out on Blu-Ray.
 
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N-121973 said:
And 'Get your Trousers on, you're nicked!' If you are going to watch 'The Sweeney', be advised there was a TV-Movie pilot named 'Regan' after the lead character and two films 'Sweeney!' & 'Sweeney II'.
Click to expand...

I first saw The Sweeney only about two years ago, bought the DVD sets and loved it. As an American raised on British shows on PBS I thought I was pretty conversant with the vernacular, but The Sweeney was on another level, with dialogue like:

"The grass told us who done the blag, so we got him down the nick but he kept shtum waiting for his brief."​

Whew! It was fun to try and get up to speed.

Growing up with McGarrett, Kojak, Stone and Keller, Starsky, Dirty Harry etc. speeding around in their cars, it was amusing to me that the Regan and Carter had a driver, Bill, who mostly sat in the car while they investigated! Once in a while he'd get out if they needed him, IIRC he carried a gun as well.

Also, there are a lot of great opening themes, but The Sweeney has one of the greatest-ever closing themes, calm and reflective but a little sad and haunted, a fitting closer for episodes that often ended on a bleak note.

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^ Thanks, guys! I finally located a way to watch it. I will give it a try.

"The grass told us who done the blag, so we got him down the nick but he kept shtum waiting for his brief."
Click to expand...

Er......"The snitch told us who pulled the con, so we have him in the jail but he kept quiet and waited for his lawyer." ??? Am I close? :lol:
 
auntiehill said:
^ Thanks, guys! I finally located a way to watch it. I will give it a try.



Er......"The snitch told us who pulled the con, so we have him in the jail but he kept quiet and waited for his lawyer." ??? Am I close? :lol:
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The second half of your reply was spot on and you got the gist of the first :techman:. The correct answer is 'The informant told us who committed the crime, so we've got him down at the police station where he refused to talk until his lawyer arrived'.
 
J.T.B. said:
I first saw The Sweeney only about two years ago, bought the DVD sets and loved it. As an American raised on British shows on PBS I thought I was pretty conversant with the vernacular, but The Sweeney was on another level, with dialogue like:

"The grass told us who done the blag, so we got him down the nick but he kept shtum waiting for his brief."​

Whew! It was fun to try and get up to speed.

Growing up with McGarrett, Kojak, Stone and Keller, Starsky, Dirty Harry etc. speeding around in their cars, it was amusing to me that the Regan and Carter had a driver, Bill, who mostly sat in the car while they investigated! Once in a while he'd get out if they needed him, IIRC he carried a gun as well.

Also, there are a lot of great opening themes, but The Sweeney has one of the greatest-ever closing themes, calm and reflective but a little sad and haunted, a fitting closer for episodes that often ended on a bleak note.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
Click to expand...
You are right about the end credits, especially with the titles style used in the first three seasons. I never used to like the episodes where the villain got away with it, though it was revolutionary for the time. You could almost tell based on the episode's writer which were the ones that were going to end that way.
Even the first of the two Sweeney films that the TV cast made ended like that
 
"You're nicked, sunshine!"

Things I remember watching the Sweeney (as a kid)

1. Carter's girlfriends (birds) would invariably die horribly or be revealed to be criminals.
2. Regan and Carter are pretty much always pissed

:lol:

There was a famous cartoon in a newspaper at the time Ronald Reagan was shot. A woman is watching TV and shouts "Reagan's been shot!" And the husband, in the other room, replies. "Oh I've seen this one, he survives and Carter catches who did it." (or something!)
 
The Professionals were not cops they are agents, like MI6, MI5 etc 1970's version of Homeland Security British style
 
A couple of people have already mentioned Life on Mars, and I thoroughly agree with that recommendation. The follow-up series, Ashes to Ashes, was okay, but not a patch on the original.

I also heartily recommend Waking the Dead.

Most of my other favourites have already been mentioned, but I'd like to throw a couple more in:

A while ago, Sky TV adapted two novels by my favourite author, Mark Billingham. Called Thorne, David Morrissey starred as Detective Inspector Tom Thorne, and there were 4 episodes in total, 2 for each book. Not sure how easy it will be to find, though it did come out on DVD and Wikipedia says it's on Netflix US. Also starred Aiden Gillan (Queer As Folk, The Wire, Game of Thrones, Peaky Blinders) the pathologist, Phil Hendricks.

Last year, the BBC adapted two of the same author's other books, with a different protagonist, called In the Dark. Again 4 episodes, 2 per book. Hightly enjoyable, but then I'm biased.
 
Does it have to be detective shows or can we widen the British shows net a bit? I loved "The Night Manager" with Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie and Olivia Coleman, but its more about spies and undercover work.

I also loved "Bodyguards" from 1996 with a young Sean Pertwee, all of its 7 episodes can be found on youtube.
 
Serial thread killer said:
ITV have just said endeavour will be back next year.:beer:
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That's nice to know.
By the way in Sunday's episode, when Morse visits the Chief Superintendent at his home with the news that the young policeman killed in the snooker hall shoot out wasn't killed by one of the gangsters, was I the only one who got the impression that the 'super' was involved, from the way Morse told him about the ballistics report and the way he behaved whilst pouring the drinks?
 
N-121973 said:
That's nice to know.
By the way in Sunday's episode, when Morse visits the Chief Superintendent at his home with the news that the young policeman killed
in the snooker hall shoot out wasn't killed by one of the gangsters, was I the only one who got the impression that the 'super' was involved, from the way Morse told him about the ballistics report and the way he behaved whilst pouring the drinks?
Click to expand...
I thought the same thing.
 
I've just finished re watching prime suspect, I don't like what they did to Jane's character at the end.
 
J.T.B. said:
I first saw The Sweeney only about two years ago, bought the DVD sets and loved it. As an American raised on British shows on PBS I thought I was pretty conversant with the vernacular, but The Sweeney was on another level, with dialogue like:

"The grass told us who done the blag, so we got him down the nick but he kept shtum waiting for his brief."​

Whew! It was fun to try and get up to speed.

Growing up with McGarrett, Kojak, Stone and Keller, Starsky, Dirty Harry etc. speeding around in their cars, it was amusing to me that the Regan and Carter had a driver, Bill, who mostly sat in the car while they investigated! Once in a while he'd get out if they needed him, IIRC he carried a gun as well.

Also, there are a lot of great opening themes, but The Sweeney has one of the greatest-ever closing themes, calm and reflective but a little sad and haunted, a fitting closer for episodes that often ended on a bleak note.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
Click to expand...
Have you seen any of Minder? Not a cop show as such, ups and downs over the years, but very much the continuation of Sweeney.
 
ItIsGreen said:
A couple of people have already mentioned Life on Mars, and I thoroughly agree with that recommendation. The follow-up series, Ashes to Ashes, was okay, but not a patch on the original.

I also heartily recommend Waking the Dead.

Most of my other favourites have already been mentioned, but I'd like to throw a couple more in:

A while ago, Sky TV adapted two novels by my favourite author, Mark Billingham. Called Thorne, David Morrissey starred as Detective Inspector Tom Thorne, and there were 4 episodes in total, 2 for each book. Not sure how easy it will be to find, though it did come out on DVD and Wikipedia says it's on Netflix US. Also starred Aiden Gillan (Queer As Folk, The Wire, Game of Thrones, Peaky Blinders) the pathologist, Phil Hendricks.

Last year, the BBC adapted two of the same author's other books, with a different protagonist, called In the Dark. Again 4 episodes, 2 per book. Hightly enjoyable, but then I'm biased.
Click to expand...
On the subject of Waking the Dead, a prequel series (featuring all the original cast except for Trevor Eve) just ran on Radio 4, and is hopefully still up as a podcast: look for The Forsaken, on BBC.co.uk/radio4r
Edit: The Unforgiven (not Forsaken).
 
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Well be on the look out for "Bodyguard" in late summer on BBC1. I may have something to do with it. ;-) And it has nothing to do with Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston..........which was MY first thought when it was offered.

Set in and around the corridors of power, Bodyguard tells the fictional story of David Budd, a heroic but volatile war veteran now working as a Specialist Protection Officer for the Royalty and Specialist Protection Branch of London's Metropolitan Police Service. When he is assigned to protect the ambitious and powerful Home Secretary Julia Montague, whose politics stand for everything he despises, Budd finds himself torn between his duty and beliefs. Responsible for her safety, is he actually her biggest threat?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt7493974/?ref_=nv_sr_4
 
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