These series collectively defined British crime television in the 1970s, blending suspense, drama, and social commentary, and remain influential in the genre today.
• Realism and Grit: Many series, like Z-Cars and The Sweeney, emphasized realistic portrayals of police work and urban crime.
• Character-Driven Stories: Shows often explored the personal lives of detectives alongside their professional duties.
• Procedural Focus: Series frequently highlighted investigative techniques, from forensic methods to detective intuition.
• Cultural Impact: These shows influenced public perceptions of policing and crime, and some, like The Sweeney, became cultural icons with lasting popularity.
By no means comprehensive, this chronological list only features series where I actually watched at least one episode, and it includes some shows from the late 60s.
Dixon of Dock Green 55-76
Constable George Dixon and his colleagues at the Dock Green police station in the East End of London deal with petty crime, successfully controlling it through common sense and human understanding.
John Steed (Patrick Macnee) works for British Intelligence and works with various partners, notably: Dr. David Keel (Ian Hendry) (season one), Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman) (seasons two and three), Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) (seasons four, five, and six), and Tara King (Linda Thorson) (season seven). The problems he finds are always a bit odd, just on the edge of science fiction (cyborg killers, a city built under a disused coal mine, a gang put together for adrenaline junkies, and a killer who used a concentrated cold virus to kill his victims by having them sneeze to death). Steed is always the ultimate in culture and grace as he saves the world each week.
The Saint 62-69
The Saint is a modern-day Robin Hood of sorts; he prevents criminals from succeeding. Where a reward is offered, or where the criminal's loot is not discovered or disappears, he keeps it to cover his expenses. Simon Templar (Roger Moore) must always stay one step ahead of the law. Fortunately, his wit, charm, and knowledge of a criminal's ways make this a fairly easy task.
Z-cars 62-78
A gritty drama which follows the work of the police force in the fictional town of Newtown in the North of England. There were no car chases because there were not the facilities to record them in those days for TV drama. The programme certainly showed a more realistic side to police officers lives, because, unlike Dixon of Dock Green it showed policemen as ordinary men, not as some sort of patient saint. There was a hue and cry very early on when PC Steele (Jeremy Kemp) threw his dinner at the wall and struck his wife. Dixon would NEVER had done that - but real coppers did - as did, sadly, far too many men in those far off days.
Police 5 62-92
Long-running notice board for the police, who via the amiable presenter Shaw Taylor would request help from the viewer in helping them solve various crimes. The original title of the show comes from each episode running for 5 minutes. The revived version was 30 minutes, broadcast on Channel 5.
Jeff Randall and Marty Hopkirk are private detectives who specialize in divorce cases. Their long-running partnership seems to come to an abrupt end when Marty is killed in a hit-and-run incident, but he is soon back--as a ghost--to help solve his own murder. In so doing he misses his chance to go to heaven, thanks to an ancient curse that states: "Before the sun shall rise, each ghost unto his grave must go. Cursed be the ghost who dares to stay and face the awful light of day." So Marty is stuck on Earth, as a white-suited spirit whom only Jeff can see, continuing their partnership and keeping (jealous) tabs on his widow, Jean.
Department S 1969-70
An elite department within Interpol, Department S inherits those cases which the other member groups have failed to solve. The brains of the group is Jason King (Peter Wyngarde), a hedonistic maverick who writes mystery novels and solves real-life crimes by projecting himself into the shoes of his fictional hero, Mark Caine. American Stewart Sullivan (Joel Fabiani) is the fighter and pragmatist of the group, as down to Earth and cynical as Jason is flighty and flamboyant. Annabelle Hurst (Rosemary Nichols) is their scientist and analyst, whom Jason often accuses of loving nothing in the world except her computer. Although there is strong loyalty amongst the trio, there is also a lot of competition, especially between Annabelle and Jason, who seldom agree on any theory and are continually trying to show each other up by solving cases using their preferred methods.
Special Branch 69-74
Groundbreaking British police drama series following the exploits of the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police: an elite group of officers tasked with protecting London from spies, terrorists, and subversives.
Softly, Softly: Taskforce 69-76
This West Country police force solving local crime. its a spin-off from another BBC drama series, Z Cars (1962). A British police procedural, serving as a revamp of the older series "Softly Softly". At the end of the previous series, both Detective Chief Superintendent Barlow and Detective Inspector Watt applied for a promotion. In this series, Barlow has been appointed as the head of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) at the newly formed Thamesford Constabulary. Shortly after that, Watt is appointed as the deputy head of the department and the commander of its primary task force. The task force contains a mixture of CID and uniform personnel and is meant to provide a resource for use in big operations. With few exceptions, Barlow and Watt personally handle major crime cases and leave the more mundane police duties to their subordinates.
Jason King 71-4
After leaving Department S, hedonistic, womanizing dandy Jason King (Peter Wyngarde) settled down to a full-time career of writing (trashy) Mark Caine novels. He philandered his way around the world, doing research for his stories and tripping over a variety of odd--often verging on surreal--cases, usually involving beautiful women. He was occasionally blackmailed into working for British Intelligence under the threat of being arrested for unpaid back taxes.
Two wealthy playboys, British Lord Brett Sinclair (Roger Moore)and American Danny Wilde (Tony Curtis), are teamed up by Judge Fulton to investigate crimes that the police cannot solve. These two men are complete opposites, but become great friends through their adventures and constantly risk their own lives for each other.
New Scotland Yard 72-4
John Woodvine and Alan Carlisle are the police officers who work on various criminal cases around London. The former officer is very good at his job and is respected. The latter officer though, is something of a loose cannon. He is prone to being rather overzealous in the execution of his duty and ends up in trouble at one stage. There's a good deal of variety, with the duo battling everyday murders, art frauds, even crimes of international and diplomatic themes. The domestic crimes work best - not in the same league of "Sweeney" but very watchable.
Protectors 72-4
The Protectors were Harry Rule (Robert Vaughn), Contessa Caroline di Contini (Nyree Dawn Porter), and Paul Buchet (Tony Anholt), three freelance trouble-shooters who ran an international crimefighting agency. Based in London, Harry was the leader of the group. The Contessa lived in Italy; when she wasn't working with Harry, she ran her own detective agency that specialized in exposing art fraud and recovering stolen art. Paul Buchet worked out of Paris, and was the group's researcher and gadget specialist. Their adventures ranged from simple kidnapping to convoluted cases of international intrigue.
Van der Valk 72-92 (Set in Amsterdam)
An excellent updated take on the character from a series of best- selling novels by Author Nicolas Freeling with a superlative characterisation by actor Barry Foster in the lead role. Furthermore, it was the marrying of Foster's performance with the intelligent and gritty realism of the scripts and location that made this a must-see of the time. The city of Amsterdam is beautifully captured in each and every overcast shot of period detail - trams, bikes, canals, cars and bars all add to the realistic take on a glorious setting. When this series first debuted on the ITV network in 1972 it touched on surprisingly adult themes such as pornography, homosexuality, hard drugs and child murder, quite ground-breaking stuff for a UK made TV show at the time. This inevitably meant it had to be shown in the post watershed (9pm) time slot.
Jack Regan (John Thaw) and George Carter (Dennis Waterman) are hard-edged detectives in the Flying Squad of London's Metropolitan Police. They pursue villains by methods which are underhanded and often illegal, frequently violent and--more often than not--successful. They get to deal with the trickiest cases and toughest criminals. To succeed in this job Regan, Carter, and their crew need to be ultra-tough themselves. And they are.
Raffles 75-77
Most people know A.J. Raffles only as a gentleman of leisure and a top-rated cricketer, but he is also "the amateur Cracksman", an expert jewel thief. Alternately aided and hindered by his old friend, Bunny Manders, Raffles (Anthony Valentine) cuts a dashing swathe across Edwardian England, helping himself to the baubles of the very rich, sometimes playing amateur sleuth or crime fighter, and generally enjoying himself.
New Avengers 76-77
John Steed (Patrick Macnee) and his new accomplices Purdey (Joanna Lumley) and Gambit (Gareth Hunt) find themselves facing new and deadly dangers in the bizarre world of espionage. Mixing fantasy with a darker edge, the trio face mutated giant rats, flocks of killer birds and fanatical mysterious monks. Later episodes find Steed's loyalty under question and an increasing number of assignments overseas.
XYY Man 76-77
William "Spider" Scott (Stephen Yardley) has a spare "Y" chromosome in his cell structure, which makes him very tall but also gives him a compulsion to steal. He is in retirement after a career in crime as a cat burglar, but is enticed back to work for the British Secret Service by the shady Fairfax.
Bodie (Martin Shaw) and Doyle (Lewis Collins), top agents for Britain's CI5 (Criminal Intelligence 5), and their controller, George Cowley fight terrorism and similar high-profile crimes. Cowley, a hard ex-MI5 operative, hand-picked each of his men. Bodie was a cynical ex-SAS paratrooper and mercenary whose nature ran to controlled violence, while his partner, Doyle, came to CI5 from the regular police force, and was more of an open-minded liberal.
Hazell 78-79
A sort of Cockney version of Philip Marlowe, James Hazell looked cool driving around 70s London in his Triumph Stag. The plots ran the gamut of 70s crime show clichés ( missing children, drug smuggling, bank raids ), with Hazell often on the receiving end of a good hiding from some underworld felon. What lifted it above the average were the witty scripts and Nicholas Ball's laconic performance in the title role.
Shoestring 79-80
Light-hearted detective series set in the West Country, about radio-phone-in detective Eddie Shoestring, a likable and flawed character. Following a period in a mental institution after he had a breakdown and smashed up computer equipment, he gets recruited to "radio west" a fictional (at the time) local radio station to be a "private ear". People who need detective services call him up and he attempts to solve the case for them, using the story in his radio show.
Minder 79-94
Arthur Daley (George Cole), a small-time conman, hires former boxer Terry McCann (Dennis Waterman) to be his minder and protect him from other small-time crooks. While Terry is putting his life at risk as he tries his hardest to satisfy his employer's demands, Arthur is busy exploiting Terry for all he is worth. When other people hire Terry's services through Arthur, Arthur usually keeps most of Terry's share of the money for himself by misleading the hard-working Terry about the amount of money he (as Terry's agent) is receiving on Terry's behalf.
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