Waterfront Beat

This police drama was intended I believe to be a competitor for The Bill/ Sadly they missed the formula which worked so well for The Bill.

That was 60% police actions of one kind or another, 30% administrative grumbles and problems and the remaining 10% romance in one form or another.

This, on the other hand is INCREDIBLY heavy in administrative drama and problems...to the point where I began to fast-forward through the lengthy boredom.

Personal and romantic issues takes up the next largest portion of the alloted time followed by a too-small segment of real police wortk, be it boring or exciting.

How this garnered 8 out of 10 is well beyond me and I think, compared to the few great ones out there, it's actually worth about a 5 or 6.

Worth a watch but keep the FF button close at hand.

The BBC had high hopes for this police series that was to be a gritty challenge to The Bill on ITV. The Beeb managed to lure Phil Redmond the writer/producer of Brookside to create and write for the show.

The result was a rather dull, tedious serial that somehow managed to get a second season. The stories had self contained episodes with a running story arc about a serial killer.

The series had a young copper called 'Ronnie Barker' who always had his leg pulled because he had the same name of the more famous comedy actor, but they also had a another character called Don Henderson and nobody mentioned that there was a famous actor at the time who also shared the same name.

With plodding characters and boring stories many viewers left this beat quickly.