I had intended to write a post about The Bill the night the last episode aired (in this country) and now I'm looking at a blank input box, I'm not sure what to write. I'm not sad, actually, possibly because the last episode wasn't as good as some we've had recently. Partly that comes of having everyone in it and it having a lot of Jack in a uniform (which I still can't get used to) and Neil Manson aka Dodgy DI (who seems to have had a personality change from dodgy to bland).

For anyone who hasn't got a clue what I'm talking about (which the Americans reading won't), The Bill is a cop show. It's the cop show. It's been running since 1984 (or 1983, depending on how you look at it). It's a national institution - people who don't watch it know who Frank Burnside and Jack Meadows are, the same way people who don't watch Eastenders know who Dot Cotton and the Mitchell brothers are. You'd have to bury your head in the sand not to know of its existence in this country - and maybe in Australia too. I don't know about now, but it once was bigger over there than it was here.

It started off as a pilot (called Woodentop), then had three series of twelve hour long episodes. And in those days of fewer advert breaks, it was a lot closer to an hour long. Then it went to half hours twice weekly, then three times weekly. Then back to hours twice a week. It was cut to once a week recently and moved up to 9pm - it might have started there, given the 15 rating on the early DVDs.

Ratings were a problem, but reinvention isn't a bad thing. The half hours used to consist of two crimes that didn't seem connected at first, but would end up being connected. Which did get samey. The hours gave more time for humour and more in-depth crimes. And then the Executive Producer decided to show more of the coppers lives and it all snowballed into being so soapy I'm amazed there was time for crime. And since there had been a rule that we didn't see their home lives, it meant that everyone was sleeping with everyone else.

I was worried/scared when someone told me they were watching purely for the slash in it. There were two male coppers having a will-they-won't-they thing going on. Which doesn't sound terrible, until I tell you that Sergeant Gilmore was the first gay copper in it and, apart from his first episode, it was entirely incidental. PC Luke Ashton I never really knew because he was first in it when I was in my first year at uni with no TV. Gilmore I took a while to warm to, but he became one of my favourite characters. Until he had a personality change in order to have this ratings-grabbing relationship. I suppose it worked from that perspective, but I hated seeing a character I liked behave so completely out of character that he merely shared the same name with the previous version.

I don't remember why I started watching again late last year, but it had changed and it was all about the crimes again. I didn't recognise most of the characters, but that was ok because they were all on the website and I could look them up on my netbook as I watched. I'm ok with first names now, but last names I'm more shaky on.

The thing about The Bill is, aside from me loving cop shows, is that it was my first fandom. When we first got the internet in 1996, I found the forum on the website. I have no idea what name I went under, but I remember leaving because they redesigned it and I hated it. I didn't come back until I was at uni and had a pseudonym.

In the early 2000s we used to have London Trips (LTs) where we hung around outside the studios and ambushed the cast for autographs. All of whom were lovely. Although we were scared of Roberta Taylor because her character scared us! Of the current cast I've met Jack, Smithy and Mickey - who for reasons that I've forgotten was nicknamed Twiglet, and he answered to it too.

Eventually the LTs changed from hanging around the studios then going to the pub, to walking past the studios and spending the rest of the time in the pub as we gradually just didn't like The Bill any more.

But through The Bill I've made some great friends. The ones I'm still in touch with are the regulars at the CA: Avon, Melli, Kacey, Laura. They're all in Australia, so for them they have a lot of The Bill left. But given that we all varying gave up on it and rarely discuss it any more, its passing isn't going to stop us talking.

And I'm hoping, that after a while, there'll be a gap in the market for The Bill again. And like Doctor Who, it'll rise like a phoenix from the ashes and be greater than before. And what have ITV put in place of it next week? Utter rubbish. For quality drama, you don't go to ITV these days.

4 Responses to “Farewell The Bill”

Copper Says:
Wednesday 1st September 2010 at 8:59 pm

I will miss Mickey and his cockney way of speaking "where was you last night". That is how everybody spoke when I was a child in London LOL.

I read somewhere that after they axed the Bill the idiots at ITV had a meeting and said they needed a cop show grrrr.

Nic Says:
September 1st, 2010 at 9:08 pm

There are still people who speak like that - apart from Twiglet I know one other as well.

They are idiots.

Copper Says:
Wednesday 1st September 2010 at 10:40 pm

I assume you mean that ITV are idiots rather than Twiglet and others who speak with a cockney accent

Nic Says:
September 2nd, 2010 at 11:49 am

Well, obviously.