Taggart

It's several years now since Taggart ended, and it's still a great watch. It spanned many years, and had different phases, in my opinion the early years with Mark McManus were the best, the dark, gritty writing, coupled with the charisma of the original Detective are a winning combination. I enjoyed the later years also, but wish they'd stuck with the longer running times, the character development in the earlier years was tremendous.

Some wonderful episodes over the years, my personal favourite Death Call had all of the elements, drama, crazed killers and a complex story, but there were many classics, Nest of Vipers, A Death Foretold and Gingerbread, I could go on, there were many.

Many wonderful guest and regular performances over the years, Blythe Duff shone over the years, she was the glue that held it all together, when she was given great material she performed amazingly.

It did seem to end at the right time, the last series was poor, particularly when compared to episodes from the show's glory years. I think it's still the longest running Detective series, will Midsomer Murders overtake it?

I love the accents, landscapes and views of Scotland.

Excellent series 9/10

My wife and I recently watched all 11 seasons on Amazon and really liked it. McManas is great as DCI Taggart. The show keeps you guessing until the end of each episode. My wife and I often pick a minor background character as the murderer, which turns out to be correct. It deserves better than its 7.2 rating. We gave it an 8.0, but would like to give it a 7.5. We think the low rating is due to most episodes being over 2 hrs. long and sometimes slow-moving

The complete Taggart series, every single episode including all the the post-Mark McManus episodes, is currently (2022) available for streaming in the U. S. on Britbox. I've been working my way through the series and, you know what, this may be not only my favorite cop series, it may be my favorite TV series full stop.

Why do I like it so much? I love the gritty cinema-verite settings in Glasgow, the wonderful accents (you might want to turn on the optional English subtitles), the intriguing characters, the sardonic humor, the teriffic music and theme song. But what I love most of all is the writing. Glenn Chandler's scripts are exceptional - movie length twisty-turny mysteries filled with red herrings and unexpected plot shifts, and usually leading to a payoff you didn't see coming. Later scripts by other writers mostly conformed to Chandler's unique style.

The crusty title character played by Mark McManus was in the first 28 or so feature-length episodes (they were originally shown in three parts). After McManus died of a pickled liver at age 54 (in the series, he just "died in his sleep"), his assistants Mike and Jackie became the central characters but the format remained much the same for several more years. I actually think many of the Mike and Jackie episodes compare favorably with the best Jim Taggart episodes - for example, Season 14 Ep3 Dead Reckoning is one of the very best episodes in the entire series, imo.

Eventually the series went to a shorter episode format and had an ensemble cast of four, with Jackie (Blythe Duff) being the only holdover from the early series. These episodes are not quite at the level of the early ones, imo, but are still mostly fine police drama.

If you don't get Britbox, do yourself a favor and sign up for this 7 buck a month service (half the cost of Netflix) which includes almost every classic British cop/detective show from the 1970s on, and lots of other good stuff besides. I don't miss Netflix a bit. In addition to Taggart, you can enjoy the complete Inspector Morse, A Touch of Frost, Prime Suspect, Dalziel and Pascoe, Jonathan Creek, Cracker, and much more.

"Search that hoose!"

Taggart is definitely the best of these British murder mystery police shows. Inspector Morse is good, but Taggart takes the cake due to its huge body count and fantastic Scottish accents. The body count is the major thing lacking in series like Morse and the woeful Inspector Wexford. With Taggart, we are barely given a chance to come up with a suspect for one murder and suddenly someone else has copped it and throws a spanner in the works. Excellent show.

When it was first broadcast all those years ago in 1983, as a mini-series named Killer, Glasgow was very much a city of ship building, heavy engineering and manufacturing - most of which for various reasons was in terminal decline.

Killer caught the character of that city that is now long gone - the cranes, dingy streets, sawdust pubs, old tenements and schemes - and that's been the one constant in Taggart. The evolving face of the city of Glasgow...and it's implicable, unchanging, nature.

The late Mark McManus - in a first rate performance - perfectly eptimisoed the lead character and his city - hard drinking, hard bitten, tough and laconic; yet possessing a dry humour, savviness and a very real decency. In his obituary McManus was described as a sensitive, intelligent man a world away from the character - and as fondly regarded as he was by many Glaswegians, fame did not come easily to McManus. Very sadly, his association with the role led to some verbal abuse and physical harassment. Towards the end of his life he went through a series of difficult breavements.

The other lead player was always Glasgow. It's fascinating watching the evolution of Glasgow over the course of each season. Perhaps my favourite episode was 'Root of Evil' set against the backdrop of debt collectors, Morningside (in Edinburgh) and the immensely popular but now almost forgotten 1988 Garden Festival. It was great stuff...as was 'Evil Eye', ' Flesh and Blood', 'Double Jeopardy' and 'Hostile Witness'.

Also noteworthy was the guest appearances and cameos. Alan Cumming, Robert Carlyle, Diane Keen, John Hannah, Jill Gascoigne and Celia Imrie - very striking as a gangster's moll - all made welcome appearances.

Taggart was more than just a hard copper. Inspired from Glasgow's literature, particularly William McIlvanney's subtle, underrated Laidlaw series - another detective with many of Taggart's characteristics. Any coincidence that the theme song was 'No Mean City'?

In short the McManus era is definitely a worthwhile watch. It's currently playing on UK Drama - I certainly catch it when I can.