Van der Valk

TV drama based around the daily "Goings On" at an Amsterdam police station . The show's musical theme was called "Eye Level" . Written by Dutch composer Jack Trombey and performed by England's Simon Park Orchestra, the track went on to become a major Top 40 hit in the early 1970s and eventually sold in excess of a million copies world wide.

Has the distinction (IMHO) of being the TV show with the best ever theme music. Track it down on the net if you haven't heard it.

Oh, and it was a great detective show also.

I watched this on TV tiny screen at home in the seventies. FOSTER was made for the Character, great captivating stories, the old cars and flared trousers and of course a pint, a whole corona cigar, herrings and almost everybody smoked, camel ot Marlbara. My favourite was with Patrick Allen in death on the beach. Van de valk just couldn't pin his missing wife's death at sea was committed by him. His g/f lover the late. Joanna Dunham gave a good performance in this. Excellent series I have on a 12 disc set. Mines a Heineken and some nice fresh Herrings please!! 👍👍

I saw this British TV series a few times on PBS and I loved it. I love the theme song as well. It features Barry Foster as a detective in Amsterdam (it's all in English) investigating various crimes. One I remember is some Yugoslavs were ripped off by a tractor salesman who dies, and they are the suspects.

I think I must have seen a few episodes as reruns in the late seventies,always after News at Ten. After a recent visit to Amsterdam I remembered the original and wanted to see it again so bought the box set. Barry Foster is very good and was clearly a fine actor. He has some really good scenes that exploits to the full Filmed in Amsterdam in colour you get to see the sights. The plots are complex and some scenes may seem a little laboured by modern standards but the show really holds up well against Wallender, Montalbano etc. If there is a production company out there looking for the next European detective they couldn't do much better than resurrect one of the originals, Commissaris Piet van der Valk and pay tribute to the excellent Barry Foster who made the part.