Z-Cars orZ Cars (pronounced "zed cars") was aBritish televisionpolice procedural series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police andCID detectives in the fictional town of Newtown, based onKirkby, nearLiverpool. Produced by theBBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.

Z-Cars
Created by	Troy Kennedy Martin Allan Prior
Starring	James Ellis Brian Blessed Stratford Johns Frank Windsor Jeremy Kemp Joseph Brady Colin Welland
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	12
No. of episodes	801 (462missing)(list of episodes)
Production
Running time	25 minutes & 45 minutes
Original release
Network	BBC1
Release	2 January 1962 (1962-01-02) – 20 September 1978 (1978-09-20)
Related
Softly, Softly Softly, Softly: Task Force Barlow at Large/Barlow Jack the Ripper Second Verdict

The series differed sharply from earlier police procedurals. With its less-usualNorthern England setting, it injected a new element of harsh realism into the image of the police, which some found unwelcome.^{[citation needed]}

Z-Cars ran for 801 episodes, of which fewer than half have survived. Regular stars included:Stratford Johns (Detective Inspector Barlow),Frank Windsor (Det. Sgt. Watt),James Ellis (Bert Lynch) andBrian Blessed ("Fancy" Smith). Barlow and Watt were later spun into a separate seriesSoftly, Softly.

The title comes from the radio call signs allocated byLancashire Constabulary. Lancashire police divisions were lettered from north to the south: "A" Division (based inUlverston) was thedetached part of Lancashire at the time aroundBarrow-in-Furness, "B" Division wasLancaster, and so on (seeHome Office radio). The TV series took the non-existent signs Z-Victor 1 and Z-Victor 2. The title does not, as sometimes suggested, come from the cars used,Ford Zephyr andFord Zodiac. The Zephyr was the standard traffic patrol car used by Lancashire and other police forces, while the Zodiac was only used for specialist tasks such as traffic duty. Also, the term "Z-car" was used commonly by British newspapers to refer to any type of police vehicle.

Z Cars as an idea came to creatorTroy Kennedy Martin as he listened to police messages on his radio while trying to relieve the boredom of being ill in bed withmumps.^[1] It was set in the fictional Newtown, loosely based on the real-life modern suburb ofKirkby, one of many housing estates that had sprung up across Britain in the post-war years, and its ageing neighbour Seaport.^[2]

The stories revolve around pairs of officers patrolling that week. Riding on changing social attitudes and television, the social realism, with interesting stories, garnered popularity forZ Cars. It was initially somewhat unpopular with real-life police, who disliked the sometimes unsympathetic characterisation of officers. Being set inNorthern England helped giveZ Cars a regional flavour when mostBBC dramas were set inSouthern England. It directly challenged the BBC's established police dramaDixon of Dock Green, which at that point had been running for seven years but which some considered 'cosy'.^[3]

The one character present throughout the entire run (though not in every episode) was Bert Lynch, played byJames Ellis (thoughJohn Phillips as Det. Chief Supt. Robins reappeared sporadically during the show's run – by the end of the series he had becomeChief Constable). Other characters in the early days wereStratford Johns (Det. Chief Inspector Barlow),Frank Windsor (Det. Sgt. Watt), Robert Keegan (Sgt. Blackitt),Joseph Brady (PC "Jock" Weir),Brian Blessed ("Fancy" Smith) and Jeremy Kemp (Bob Steele). Also in 1960s episodes as David Graham wasColin Welland, later a screenwriter. Other British actors who played regular roles in the early years includedJoss Ackland. Although he played no regular role in the series, futureMonkeeDavy Jones appeared in three episodes,^[vague] and 1963 saw two future well-known faces join the regulars –Leonard Rossiter played DI Bamber in eight episodes, andJohn Thaw, later known for his roles inThe Sweeney andInspector Morse, appeared in four as a detective constable who had to leave the force because he had a "glass head" – he could not drink alcohol when socialising and mixing with the criminal fraternity, very much part of a detective's job.

Z-Cars ran for 801 episodes.

The original run ended in 1965; Barlow, Watt and Blackitt were spun off into a new seriesSoftly, Softly. When the BBC was looking for a twice-weekly show to replace a series of failed 'soaps' (one example beingUnited!),Z Cars was revived. The revival was produced by the BBC's serials department in a twice-weeklysoap opera format of 25-minute episodes, and only James Ellis and Joseph Brady remained from the original show's run. It was shown from March 1967, both 25-minute segments each week comprising one story.

It ran like this until the episode "Kid's Stuff" (broadcast on 30 March 1971), shown as a single 50-minute episode for the week, proved the longer format would still work. Thereafter,Z Cars was shown in alternating spells of either two × 25 minute episodes or the single 50-minute episode each week over the next 16 months. This arrangement ended with the showing of the final two-parter, "Breakage" (Series 6, parts 74 and 75, on 21 and 22 August 1972 respectively), after which the series returned permanently to a regular pattern of one 50-minute episode per week.^[4]

Like many series of its era,Z-Cars is incomplete in the archives. The period 1962–65 is reasonably well represented; though with big gaps. With the 1967–71 sixth series, when the programme was shown almost every week, material becomes more patchy still. Of the 416 episodes made for this series, only 108 survive: a few episodes each from 1967, 1969, and 1970, but there are no surviving episodes from 1968 or 1971. About 40% of the total 801 episodes are preserved.^[5]

The original series was one of the last British television dramas to be screened as alive production. With videotaping becoming the norm and telerecording a mature method of preserving broadcasts, the practice of live broadcasting drama productions was rare by the time the programme began in 1962. Going out "live" was a preference of the series' producerDavid Rose, who felt it helped immediacy and pace and gave it an edge. As a result, episodes were still not being pre-recorded as late as 1965. Most were videotaped for a potential repeat, although the tapes – costed as part of a programme's budget – were normallywiped for re-use. The transfer of a live or videotaped programme to film greatly enhanced its chances of surviving.

In the 1980s, the telerecording of the pilot episode "Four of a Kind" was returned to its writerAllan Prior by an engineer. He had taken it home to preserve it because his children had enjoyed the programme and as a result he could not bring himself to destroy it. This and two other early editions were released on a BBC Video in 1993.^[6] Two further episodes were returned in 2004 after turning up in a private collection; there have been other occasional returns of individual early episodes in more recent years.

The return of the 50-minute format into regular use coincided with an increase in the survival rate, and all episodes from the 1975–1978 period are preserved in the archives.BBC Archive Treasure Hunt was a drive to seek out missing episodes and is still open to information regarding missing editions of lost BBC television programmes. British vintage television enthusiast organisationKaleidoscope is also interested in the recovery of lost television shows, regardless of their original maker or broadcaster.

TheZ-Cars theme tune was arranged byFritz Spiegl^[7] and his then wife, composer Bridget Fry, from the traditional Liverpoolfolk song "Johnny Todd".^[7] It was released on record in several versions in 1962.Johnny Keating's version (Piccadilly Records, 7N.35032) sold the best, reaching No. 8 on theRecord Retailer chart and as high as No. 5 on some UK charts, whilst theNorrie Paramor Orchestra's version, onColumbia DB 4789, peaked at No. 33. A vocal version of the theme, using the original ballad's words, was released by cast member James Ellis onPhilips Records PB 1230; this missed the charts.^{[8][citation needed]}

The song in Spiegl and Fry's arrangement is used as an anthem by Englishfootball clubsEverton andWatford, playing as the teams enter the pitch for their home games, atGoodison Park andVicarage Road respectively.^[9][10] It is also used for similar purposes at the Borough Park home ofWorkington A.F.C.^[11]

The tune has also been used as music for the hymn "Father, Hear the Prayer We Offer".^[12]

Softly, Softly, a 1965 spin-off, focused on the regional crime squad, and ran until 1969, when it was again revised and becameSoftly, Softly: Task Force, running until 1976. The character of Barlow (Stratford Johns) was one of the best-known figures in British television in the 1960s and 1970s. He was given four seasons of his own solo series,Barlow at Large (laterBarlow) which ran from 1971 to 1975. Barlow joined Watt (Frank Windsor) for the 1973 serialJack the Ripper. The serial's success led to a further spin-off titledSecond Verdict in which Barlow and Watt looked into unsolved cases and unsafe convictions.

Windsor made a final appearance as Watt in the last episode ofZ-Cars, "Pressure", in September 1978, with Robins (John Phillips), thedetective chief superintendent from the original series who had risen to chief constable.Jeremy Kemp, Brian Blessed, Joseph Brady and Colin Welland also appeared, though not as their original characters.

In a 2000 poll to find the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century conducted by theBritish Film Institute,Z-Cars was voted 63rd.^[13] It was also included in television critic Alison Graham's alphabetical list of 40 "all-time great" TV shows published inRadio Times in August 2003.^[14]

(1962–1965 and 1967–1978: 12 series, 801 episodes)

• Z-car (disambiguation)

• Z-Cars atIMDb
• Encyclopedia of TelevisionArchived 20 November 2005 at theWayback Machine
• British Film Institute Screen Online
• BBC Programmes
• "Z Cars Missing Episodes". Archived fromthe original on 11 October 2012.