The Sweeney broke the mould for British cop shows. Until it was broadcast they'd been rather stolid sometimes quaint dramas like Dixon of Dock Green Z-Cars & Softly Softly about policemen
- or even bobbies: not cops. They were about upholding the law: not breaking it: about smart blue uniforms not kipper ties & long hair. They were about preventing or punishing violence
- not about inflicting it with pleasure on villains. Then in 1975 The Sweeney burst onto commercial television. Based on the notoriously corrupt activities of Scotland Yard's Flying Squad it followed two dishevelled uncouth detectives Regan & Carter played by John Thaw & Dennis Waterman who hurtled around unsalubrious parts of London in a battered Ford Granada roughing up anyone who failed to spill the beans quickly enough. Where Dixon of Dock Green would bid his viewers Goodnight all 1" with a cheery salute this pair snarled " Shut it!" at toe-rags who spoke out of turn & " Put 'em away love" at gangsters' molls whose boudoirs they'd burst in on. Philip Glenister's Gene Hunt in Life on Mars is both parody & homage. Now Pat Gilbert has written the book on this cult cop show interviewing dozens of people who made it happen from screenwriters to stuntmen. It's an essential companion to one of the DVD box sets."