Tom_101 The Bill was essentially a cultural fountain from which a beautiful rainbow-haze of socio-introspection emerged, inspiring such famed derivatives as Cop Land, The Departed, The Godfather 3, and most recently of course, The Wire.With multi-faceted characters and story lines that have been described as '4-dimensional Shakespeare', The Bill grabbed you by the collars from episode one and just would not let you go.The show covered, anticipated, and even occasionally caused all the major global events between 1984 and 2010. The most famously prescient moment being episode 19 of series 5, which aired on the eve of the second Gulf War. Detective Jim Carver's misguided - and ultimately career ending - drugs raid on Craig 'Fun Boy' Richardson's flat in the Jasmine Allen Estate in early 2003, was widely viewed as a predictive allegory for the coalition's failure to find weapons of mass destruction following the invasion of Iraq several months later.However, it was the work the Bill did to try and highlight some of the lesser-known problems experienced by police officers that won it the most praise. This was sympathetic drama covering such sensitive areas as helmet-phobia, under-uniform cross-dressing, in-van homosexuality, lost truncheons, casual drunken bestiality (regretted), siren aversion syndrome (SAS), groin chaffing caused by chasing suspects while wearing an overly starched uniform and many, many more issues that still trouble, disturb, haunt and excite officers to this day.The last word should go to one of The Bill's most famous fans, Nelson Mandela: "…it is no exaggeration to say that I would not have made it through the dark void of loneliness that summed up my last years of incarceration on Robben Island if it wasn't for the heart-warming, casual buffoonery of Reg Hollis."

Richard_of_York The Bill is a TV drama series shown at peak (pre-watershed) times. It has always fitted this category. It started out years ago as a 50 minutes or so episode, spent many years as a 30 minutes show and in recent years has returned to the longer format. Originally each programme had a self contained storyline, but now there is a continuity between episodes.It is what it has always been. Entertainment. It is not intended to be a serious commentary on police procedures.There are enough real life police programmes (both British and American) on British TV. I watch The Bill for a couple of weeks sometimes and then maybe not again for months. It doesn't matter! The characters will still be there and if they're not they'll be referred to so many times in the months after their departure for whatever reason (to say nothing of the popular press saturated coverage) that I'll soon find out where they've gone.

Mark Hone I wrote a review a couple of years ago regretting the direction the programme had taken. I note that several other readers have also commented on The Bill's headlong descent into pantomime soap-opera. I cannot believe that many of the show's long-time fans (which included the eminent historian Andrew Roberts) now bother to watch. Very occasionally I steel myself to tune in for part of an episode but end up watching through my fingers. My most recent visits coincided with the police station being blown up for the second time in five years, the exposure of yet another psychopathic deranged serial-killer police officer, Superintentent Okaro's entire family being wiped out and the poor man going doolally and a regular character being held hostage for the umpteenth time. Not to mention yet another series regular being involved in a relationship with a criminal and struggling with divided loyalties. Enough already! Let Sun Hill join Dock Green and Newtown in that great police beat in the sky.

Pixman Once upon a time there was a British police drama called "The Bill". It was a good series. Fast paced, well acted and as the name implies, about police doing the things police do.A few years ago, "The Bill" was replaced by another series, also called "The Bill" with much the same cast. That however, was where any similarity to the original series ended.The new "The Bill" is a turgid soap where the main occupation of the cast is keeping up with who is in bed with who, who is gay, who is a psycho, who is stabbing who in the back and who is bent. Who is bent seems only of passing interest though as the other issues are far more important.The remaining five minutes of any episode may actually contain some police issues but that is fairly optional.Perhaps the use of police uniforms and vehicles is meant to cover the fact that the present series is but a shadowy reflection of a once excellent drama called "The Bill".It would do the producers of this appalling soap a power of good to get a reel or two of the episodes made ten years ago and watch them a few times. Maybe then they would realize what a disgrace the current effort is.