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| TV,
Jerry Carpenter,
20 January 1999 |
Rating: F5
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If there’s one thing us Brit’s love it’s Crime. Crime makes great TV, it must do because all five channels are awash with crime post watershed. Most of the US imports tend to veer toward the trashy – for every tough nut like ‘NYPD Blue’ there’s a handful of ‘Martial Law’s and ‘Hooperman’s. Homegrown crimeshows gravitate toward the glamour-free and gritty – bent coppers, social misery, flint-faced thugs, and dialogue that still feels torn from the pages of ‘The Sweeny’.
Which brings on ‘The Bill’, which to my knowledge is Britain’s longest running Police drama series – it’s been there for 17 years !. Looking at it now let’s just say a few things have changed. The thudding theme-tune has been jazzed up, and the strolling legs of the credits have been amputated. Most of the new faces tend to be a lot ballsier, and although I can’t state it empirically I’m sure the characters argue more. I’m surprised they ever crack any cases at all with all the back-stabbing and in-fighting.
The biggest change is the move to an hour-long format. This has led to more in-depth stories along the lines of it’s US counterparts. But more noticeably it’s led to more insane storylines. Sun Hill is no longer a place of everyday petty crime. In the space of a week we’ve had serial killers (knife-fighting in the scrapyard with Burnside) and cops going undercover as professional hit-men (whose target naturally is top cop Jack Meadows – surprise !).
Thankfully all this sensationalist absurdity hasn’t dented the show’s appeal. The uniform cast (haha) are all great still – and when called on to really get intense come up with some prime ham. Jim Carver’s blazing slide into the bottle over the season gave us some moments of sublime TV action, falling down stairs, getting it on with whores, disarming machine-gun toting thugs – fantastic. Next up is a wildly promising two-parter with the hardest-man-in-the-world Frank Burnside going undercover dealing coke and firearms in Newcastle to bust some heads. A long long way from Dock Green methinks.
ITV Tues/Weds 20.00 GMT
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