Quinnan/Bolton story is very good, was good to see Bolton with a heart at the hospital, did remind me though how unlikeable Bolton and Garfield were the majority of the time. Also looking back at the episodes now you can see that Deakin wasn't always the toughest DI in the world he did seem to let things go especially with his SGT's and Bolton and of course Beech got away with quite alot.

Very good point. Part of the reason why Deakin had to be transferred in the Don Beech scandal. If Deakin was tougher, Beech may have been sussed out a lot quicker, which is something I've noticed from these episodes.

And I dunno with Boulton...they made his character more extreme and obsessed with his work, than he was when he first came into the show. And Garfield was just miserable all of the time, so he wasn't a great loss when he departed.

One of the things the producers started to do from these episodes onwards was make the characters more miserable i.e. with the Dave/Polly plot. It was depressing to watch.

It's probably the reason why I began to drift away from the programme.

In 1999 the writers began to centre more on the failings of individual officers with a number of storylines centred around one police officer or another getting into all sorts of bother, usually involving drugs or something like that.

As for Garfield, he was never one of my favourite characters. And over the next few months he'll become even more miserable when Dave hooks up with his soon to be introduced girlfriend, Nurse Jenny (who I have to admit to fancying like mad!).

And while characters like Dave, Garfield, Jenny and Polly were very overused, we still had characters like Deakin and Rawton whose private lives we didn't know much about, and characters like Gary McCann and Jim Carver who were just underused, although Carver would have a big story later on.

I feel that while the producer sort of had the right idea with making Boulton more extreme in his behaviour, it didn't result to anything. A mental breakdown story for Boulton would have been an excellent story, with Sun Hill's tough guy having to cope with the stigma of mental illness.

How long until we get to the Boulton/Stanton/beech corruption storyline?

Much better than what is currently on Watch

Thanks to this thread I have re-discovered The Bill, one of the programmes I never wanted to miss throughout the 90's up until the mid 2000's when it was ruined by making it too 'soapy', only for it to rediscover itself in the last few years.

I hadn't realised the George/Dave/Jenny storyline was 1999, almost 15 years ago. Amazing how times fly past.

I'd never especially appreciated this 3-parter before but found it compelling viewing watching it again. It's nice to see CID and uniform interacting (if you can call it that!) strongly, lots of characters and there were some beautiful scenes - I particularly liked the one between Boyden and Boulton in the second episode. And perhaps my favourite line was 'I'm saying nothing' and Boulton's reply of 'if you're saying nothing, then shut up!' Although any episode with Len Collin as the writer is generally good, as I believe tomorrow's is...

On which note, I believe over the next week there's 3 very good episodes coming up featuring a fair amount of Conway - and 2 of these are probably amongst my personal favourites (certainly of 99.)

Anyway perhaps 8.5 or 9 out of 10 for the first two, and maybe 8 for the final one which was a bit more subdued although still a neat ending.

Friday's episode was very strong - 9/10 for that.

Today's episode was good but maybe less strong compared to the first two so 8.5/10, but still a nice little story with Quinnan and the patient, plus a resolution to the Garfield/Boulton tension. Best line from that episode:

Journalist: What was going through your head?
Quinnan: Size 10 Dr. Martens

Journalist: How did it feel?
Quinnan: It hurt.

I'm way behind on my recordings but over the last few days I've watched 'All the Lonely People' 'Time Gentleman Please' 'The Personal Touch' 'Puzzled' and 'Christmas Star' tonight. All of these episodes are brilliant and the Bill at its best!

'All the Lonely People' was a great story, which had Liz Rawton centre stage, similar to 'Time Gentleman Please'. Liz is one of my favourite characters from CID. I also loved the Personal Touch with a young Denise Van Outen and Den Watts and seeing some of Don's delicious dodgy side!

Have they skipped forwards in the episodes?! My TV Guide mentions Debbie McAllister but when I was watching last week I'm sure she wasn't in it.

There have been no skips forward on Drama other than a missing Burnside episode last week.

TV guides are not always reliable. Radio Times mentions Des Taviner's arrival in tonight's 11:50 slot which is about 2 years ahead of where we actually are, I think!

Guess it was wrong. Dave Quinnan's still in Hospital. It was just such a specific description of Episode 84.

Today's episode on Drama - 'On Air' originally aired 23/03/99 (according to Wikipedia), Claire Stanton's first episode is 'Millenium' which originally aired on 23/09/99 (again according to Wikipedia). At the current rate - Stanton's first ep should be in about 8 weeks time (give or take). I was watching a tape of TB from when this run was shown on UK Gold 2 back in the early noughties - the Beech, Boulton, Stanton, Howard Fallon, etc etc eps from 2000 were brilliant. Looking forward to seeing those on Drama.

Loved the radio one, being an aspiring radio presenter myself. That David Campbell guy was so brilliantly creepy on the phone, was quite shocked to find he was injured when they all busted into his house - I expected them to arrest him.

Watching these episodes now has made me re-appreciate this era of The Bill. I'll probably intend to stop watching when they get to about 2002.

Tommy Boyd who played the DJ is now a columist in our local rag. He probably still does some radio.

Some great lines recently - 'he's reliving his childhood', 'he must have a good memory!' And when Lennox was speaking about what you'd get from a prostitute and everyone saying 'how would you know?' And of course Burnside saying 'British industry' and Lennox correcting him with 'English industry if you don't mind guv!'

I enjoyed both On Air and the Burnside episode from last week (with the women in hotels) - 8/10 for both. The Under Duress one with Boulton investigating the fire was pretty boring as I remember - probably one of the worst so far.

Will have a big catch-up this weekend on this week's episodes. Should be good.

That line Burnside has in to catch a cobra is quite funny about Kipling

Im about a week or so behind on the recordings, last one i watched was slinging mud, was a cracking episode, and while making sure todays was recording, i noticed it had that moaning Mandy in it off Corrie, and she seemed to be moaning and miserable in this to

All my recordings since Tuesday have failed so will miss "On Air" and "To Catch a Cobra".

I'm a bit overwhelmed by CID this week. Hopefully we get some uniform eps next week.

Excellent description of a great pairing


It was a Police soap


Kerry Holmes was my favourite female character.

Just seen "Weekends are for Wimps". Quite enjoyed having Conway and Meadows running the show - decent crime story, good episode. 7.5/10.

It was nice not to see Brownlow for once - I never liked him as a character, seemed quite slimy and out-of-touch. Always thought Conway would make a good Super - I know Conway had a brief stint as Acting Super in the mid 90s while Brownlow was away...should have probably stayed that way.

I'm a little bit behind with watching the episodes so have had something of a catching up weekend.

I was watching the episode 'Slinging Mud' this afternoon. It's the one where £5,000 is found in CID and during a drugs trial DCI Meadows finds himself being set up. I remember watching this at the time (18 February 1999 according to imdb.com) and thinking back then that the whole storyline was totally implausible. Not only was the defence in the court case trying to make out that DCI Meadows was involved in corruption but he then investigated the allegations himself. It struck me then that this would be highly unlikely - surely it would be an immediate referral to CIB or at the very least it would be impossible for someone in CID to undertake an investigation into the people who were trying to make out he was corrupt.

It struck me back then in 1999 while watching this episode that the nature of The Bill itself was beginning to change and that while the Bill never pretended to 100% accurately reflect police procedures it at least was aware of them. The Bill used to have input from retired (and not so retired) police officers who advised on police procedures and policy but in this episode those procedures were ignored for the sake of a storyline. Over time this began to happen more and more as the plot lines began to demand that the drama level be notched up a bit at the expense of basic realism.