The Placer
written by Trevor Preston
Available on The Sweeney season 1 box set
The Sweeney is in many people's opinion, mine included, the best television cop series ever made anywhere. Eat your heart out The Shield - no matter how good you are you just don't compare to The Sweeney.
The show, made by Thames, was first aired on the independent networks in the UK in 1975. it was shot entirely on film, rare in TV in those days, and was an immediate ratings winner.
John Thaw, these days better remembered for his cerebral portrayal of Inspector Morse, is Inspector Jack Regan and Dennis (Minder) Waterman plays his sergeant George Carter. This episode finds Jack undercover as a lorry driver while he tries to get to the top man in a lorry hijacking operation. It's all gritty 1970' s realism - the fashions look bizarre but the characters are as real as people on the street and the climax is genuinely exciting.
This is quality television and still holds the viewer in a vice like grip today -the DVD box set is superb and stuffed with extras. The series is sometimes shown on television but these are heavily edited cuts to confirm with our politically correct times but the episodes on these discs are complete and as originally broadcast.
7 comments:
Put your trousers on, you're NICKED!
I love this show.
Brilliant show.
"Heavily edited cuts" . . . that's sad. I wonder what "improvement" the PC brigade thinks this achieves -- either in the shows or the moral climate of our times.
Sounds like a helluva program. I'm surprised we didn't steal the idea and make a bastarized American version. Or did we?
David -Life on Mars was sort of the Sweeney with a SF element
Should have added that at least the UK version was
Top cop show! One of my favourites.
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