h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm not a soap fan ... I haven't watched it since the early days (when I did watch it as a bored teenager sat at home on school nights) ... but I'm quite surprised to see it's going ... part of TV heritage ... how long until they decide to reimagine it?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8588941.stm

That's a shame. What time slot is it playing in?

They stopped playing it here in NZ some years ago. After Franks Burnside left. June Ackland was still there, and Jim Carver who had some back as after his descent into alcoholic hell. Chandler was the sleazy corrupt Super.

we stopped watching it when it moved time slot

Was that back circa 1988 when it went from weekly for an hour at 9pm to half-hourly twice per week at 8pm?

it was allways pre watershed, thats what kept it interesting, a cop show, grounded in real life, unlike all the other cop shows, then last year it went after 9 and became just like every other cop show

My memory and ****pedia beg to differ ...

"Although originally only intended as a one-off, "Woodentop" impressed ITV to the extent that a full series was commissioned, first broadcast on 16 October 1984 with one post-watershed episode per week, featuring an hour-long, separate storyline for each episode of the first three seasons."

ok
i am probably wrong then

i was watching it when it was a half hour pre watershed show

and it made mundane policing interesting

not big crimes, roddery and murder like the other cop shows

small things, anti social behavior, bunking off school, runaways, shop lifting, the sort of crimes the likes of taggart would not deal with

It was a very tightly scripted one hour show when it started.It lost a lot when they started showing it pre watershed as a half hour show.

Then they started giving jobs to ex soap stars and setting up really ridiculous plots like rogue cops blowing up the station...Where the hell has that any basis in reality?Falsely arresting someone,yes.Taking bribes,yes.Turning a blind eye,yes. But suddenly taking explosives and blowing up the workplace like a terrorist? I don't think so.

Fond memories from my childhood too.... bits of the series were filmed near where I grew up....

I stopped watching when it went all 'soap opera' after a big revamp where they got rid of a load of characters. Before that it was all about the police work. From memory, what was really innovative about it was that the viewer only saw what the police saw. No plot exposition conversations between criminals, no scenes obviously building up to crimes.

I think the best British cop show was, er, 'The Cops'.
(http://www.world-productions.com/wp/content/shows/cops/cops.htm)
Set in Manchester (and therefore gritty) it was shot in a documentary style and had much more realistic characters than 'The Bill' - fallible, believable, and well rounded. And almost all much younger than in 'The Bill'. It was almost all about uniformed officers - hardly any CID involved at all. My favourite thing was that there was no closing music over the credits - just radio chatter, which sometimes described some new incident, or sometimes served as an epilogue to the episode.

"I think the best British cop show was, er, 'The Cops'."

As opposed to "The Detectives" with Jasper Carrott and Robert whats-is-face?

Duvall or De Niro?

He means Jesus

Robert Powell

Aw Jesus

What a career that guy had. Winner of "Search for a Star" ar birth then he became pin up boy for the Jews before the long slide to straight man for a Brummie "comic".

I always thought the Bill was never the same after they stopped showing close-ups of male and female coppers' feet plodding along, in the opening sequence with the ploddy Bill music, that's meant to sound like coppers plodding.

I stopped watching it when it went from 60 mins to 30 mins because none of the story lines seemed to get finished off in the time. I loved it before that, never got back into it.

Yeah, I stopped watching it when it turned into a soap. I mean, to be fair, it was looking a bit old and tired and I think they had to do something to regen it, but a shame they did what they did.

I do remember my dad, who was in the Met in the 60s, used to watch it as well as it wasn't that far from real life until they changed it.

Much better than Juliet Bravo

Juliet Bravo? Cor, we were glued to that every week when we were kids. But then came Heartbeat ...

Mol

I was always more of a Sweeny and Professionals grrrl myself


*jumps over bonnet of car*

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SHUT IT!!!!!!!!! you sl*********g!

your nicked