Today I am taking a look at The Sweeney a British Television police show that forever changed the way of how cop shows were made in the U.K. for the better or worse. The Sweeney stars John Thaw
as Jack Regan, Dennis Waterman as George Carter, and Garfield Morgan
as DCI Frank Haskins. The origins of this show actually dates back to another show the highly successful ITV Armchair Theatre which ran one off episodes that tyically lasted about 110 minutes and featured stories in a wide variety of settings and eras. The interesting thing about the Armchair Theatre sometimes public response to certain episodes could lead to individual episodes getting picked up for their own series for instance A Magnum for Schieder led to Callan and Regan led to The Sweeney. The Sweeney was created by Ian Kennedy Martin who has contributed to a lot of other police dramas and the brother of better known writer Troy Kennedy Martin remembered mostly today for writing the classic Italian Job film and Edge of Darkness Tv Series. Ian was forced off the show early on by producer Ted Childs who should be given a lot of credit of how the series direction went and was filmed. Lets just say Ian wanted less action and more dialougue and Ted disagreed with this. What we ended up getting in the end was a cop show shot entirely on film, on location, and heavy on the action sequences. Which gave the U.K. something they have never seen before a degree of realism never seen in a cop show before raw and intense. The Sweeney ended up being the first really modern police-based series on British television. Previously, most dramas featuring the police had shied away from showing 'coppers' as fallible human beings. The police in The Sweeney were a million miles away from those of the BBC's cosy world of Dixon of Dock Green, or even from the BBC's slightly more realistic Z Cars. They were brutal and violent in dealing with London's hardened criminals, and prone to cutting corners and bending laws. The series showed a somewhat more realistic side of the police which often had a disregard for authority, rules and the 'system', as long it got the job done. Until The Sweeney this had been a subject largely whitewashed by British television. It was a fast-paced edge-of-your-seat action series, depicting the Squad's relentless battle against armed robbery; but it nevertheless included a substantial degree of humour. For the time, it had a high degree of graphic on-screen violence and the episodes had a high number of on-screen deaths. As a result of this it led to alot of big name actors, writers, and directors wanting to get in on the project as well as two feature films which allowed the people to do what little they were not able to get away with on television which was not much. The series focuses on veteran police inspector Jack Regan and his new partner George Carter while they go out and investigate crimes and try to solve the mystery anyway they can all under the supervision of DCI Frank Haskins who play a very small role in the majority of the episodes. Sometimes the inspectors save the day, sometimes they get crapped on and fail, and sometimes nothing can go their way. It is absolutely the main reasons I love this series because they do mess up and move on. In one episode two rival squads get setup against each other in an ambush and the villain gets away as a small example of what can happen. Today I am looking at the episode Hit and Run guest starring Patrick Troughton and Michael Sheard in the same episode. To be honest with the phrase bad things happen when the Doctor comes can really apply to this particular episode. This was the first episode written by Roger Marshall for the series who ended up writing 8 episodes for the series and is considered to be the one writer who worked with actor John Thaw the most throughout his years. Hit and Run starts off with a lady who is trying to get out of a crime syndicate and is warned by her contact you just can't leave they will silence you. Opening Credits role and we start off with George Carter returning home from a long day at work whose wife is now getting mad at him because of the hours and leaves him to go to work. A few moments later we run into Patrick Troughton who is a used car dealer and the man from the intro saying the woman is quitting. Troughton decides to call up a guy to put up a hit on the female. Flash Foward a few scenes Carter's wife is leaving the school and is given a jacket by the lady from the opening sequence since she forget hers and she works with her. A few moments later on the way home Carter's wife is involved in a hit and run accident by mistake and dies. In real life the actress wanted more money to stay on the show. Quite honestly in the end this decision led to Carter being a much more free character throughout the rest of the series. I will not give away the rest, but this is one of the best episodes of the series because it falls into one of the categories mentioned above. Are there some bad episodes in the bunch sure, but it is far outweighed by the number of outstanding episodes. Some of the episodes I do suggest include from Series 1 the Ringer, Queen's Pawn, Jigsaw, and Abduction Series 2 Hit and Run Series 4 Hearts and Mind with Morecambe and Wise as themselves in what has to be the funniest car chase of the series and Jack or Knave the series finale. Video Quality - A There is very little artifacting and they have been cleaned up beautifully Network did suprisingly did a nice job. Special Features - A When it comes to series like these I don't ask for much, but they do deliver on a very nice scale with veteran actors like Tony Selby doing the intro to his ep, wirters, directors, actors' families like Morecombe and Wise's family looking back and stunt men on the project doing interviews with alot of audio commentaries thoughout and nice thing is they give you a choice 5.1 and mono the way they were filmed. Overall - A What else could I give a release handled this nicely not much. Be on the lookout for veteran actors Patrick Troughton, Michael Sheard, Warren mitchel, Morecombe and Wise, Roy Kinnear, Richard Griffiths, Brian Glover, Denholm Elliott, Brian Blessed, and Lynda Bellingham. The Sweeney is a great series and hard to describe without seeing it. It is very easy to see why shows like Life On Mars borrowed heavily on this series because Gene Hunt could easily be a take off of Jack Regan and Sam Tyler could be the George Carter that wants to stand up against Jack Regan on a few occasions because of actions. This show is a piece of television history that still stands up well today and is definately worth watching at least once.
Today I am taking a look at The Sweeney a British Television police show that forever changed the way of how cop shows were made in the U.K. for the better or worse. The Sweeney stars John Thaw 
as Jack Regan, Dennis Waterman as George Carter, and Garfield Morgan 
as DCI Frank Haskins. The origins of this show actually dates back to another show the highly successful ITV Armchair Theatre which ran one off episodes that tyically lasted about 110 minutes and featured stories in a wide variety of settings and eras. The interesting thing about the Armchair Theatre sometimes public response to certain episodes could lead to individual episodes getting picked up for their own series for instance A Magnum for Schieder led to Callan and Regan led to The Sweeney. The Sweeney was created by Ian Kennedy Martin who has contributed to a lot of other police dramas and the brother of better known writer Troy Kennedy Martin remembered mostly today for writing the classic Italian Job film and Edge of Darkness Tv Series. Ian was forced off the show early on by producer Ted Childs who should be given a lot of credit of how the series direction went and was filmed. Lets just say Ian wanted less action and more dialougue and Ted disagreed with this. What we ended up getting in the end was a cop show shot entirely on film, on location, and heavy on the action sequences. Which gave the U.K. something they have never seen before a degree of realism never seen in a cop show before raw and intense. The Sweeney ended up being the first really modern police-based series on British television. Previously, most dramas featuring the police had shied away from showing 'coppers' as fallible human beings. The police in The Sweeney were a million miles away from those of the BBC's cosy world of Dixon of Dock Green, or even from the BBC's slightly more realistic Z Cars. They were brutal and violent in dealing with London's hardened criminals, and prone to cutting corners and bending laws. The series showed a somewhat more realistic side of the police which often had a disregard for authority, rules and the 'system', as long it got the job done. Until The Sweeney this had been a subject largely whitewashed by British television. It was a fast-paced edge-of-your-seat action series, depicting the Squad's relentless battle against armed robbery; but it nevertheless included a substantial degree of humour. For the time, it had a high degree of graphic on-screen violence and the episodes had a high number of on-screen deaths. As a result of this it led to alot of big name actors, writers, and directors wanting to get in on the project as well as two feature films which allowed the people to do what little they were not able to get away with on television which was not much. The series focuses on veteran police inspector Jack Regan and his new partner George Carter while they go out and investigate crimes and try to solve the mystery anyway they can all under the supervision of DCI Frank Haskins who play a very small role in the majority of the episodes. Sometimes the inspectors save the day, sometimes they get crapped on and fail, and sometimes nothing can go their way. It is absolutely the main reasons I love this series because they do mess up and move on. In one episode two rival squads get setup against each other in an ambush and the villain gets away as a small example of what can happen. Today I am looking at the episode Hit and Run guest starring Patrick Troughton and Michael Sheard in the same episode. To be honest with the phrase bad things happen when the Doctor comes can really apply to this particular episode. This was the first episode written by Roger Marshall for the series who ended up writing 8 episodes for the series and is considered to be the one writer who worked with actor John Thaw the most throughout his years. Hit and Run starts off with a lady who is trying to get out of a crime syndicate and is warned by her contact you just can't leave they will silence you. Opening Credits role and we start off with George Carter returning home from a long day at work whose wife is now getting mad at him because of the hours and leaves him to go to work. A few moments later we run into Patrick Troughton who is a used car dealer and the man from the intro saying the woman is quitting. Troughton decides to call up a guy to put up a hit on the female. Flash Foward a few scenes Carter's wife is leaving the school and is given a jacket by the lady from the opening sequence since she forget hers and she works with her. A few moments later on the way home Carter's wife is involved in a hit and run accident by mistake and dies. In real life the actress wanted more money to stay on the show. Quite honestly in the end this decision led to Carter being a much more free character throughout the rest of the series. I will not give away the rest, but this is one of the best episodes of the series because it falls into one of the categories mentioned above. Are there some bad episodes in the bunch sure, but it is far outweighed by the number of outstanding episodes. Some of the episodes I do suggest include from Series 1 the Ringer, Queen's Pawn, Jigsaw, and Abduction Series 2 Hit and Run Series 4 Hearts and Mind with Morecambe and Wise as themselves in what has to be the funniest car chase of the series and Jack or Knave the series finale. Video Quality - A There is very little artifacting and they have been cleaned up beautifully Network did suprisingly did a nice job. Special Features - A When it comes to series like these I don't ask for much, but they do deliver on a very nice scale with veteran actors like Tony Selby doing the intro to his ep, wirters, directors, actors' families like Morecombe and Wise's family looking back and stunt men on the project doing interviews with alot of audio commentaries thoughout and nice thing is they give you a choice 5.1 and mono the way they were filmed. Overall - A What else could I give a release handled this nicely not much. Be on the lookout for veteran actors Patrick Troughton, Michael Sheard, Warren mitchel, Morecombe and Wise, Roy Kinnear, Richard Griffiths, Brian Glover, Denholm Elliott, Brian Blessed, and Lynda Bellingham. The Sweeney is a great series and hard to describe without seeing it. It is very easy to see why shows like Life On Mars borrowed heavily on this series because Gene Hunt could easily be a take off of Jack Regan and Sam Tyler could be the George Carter that wants to stand up against Jack Regan on a few occasions because of actions. This show is a piece of television history that still stands up well today and is definately worth watching at least once. 
