Z-Cars: Four of a Kind Review

This is how it all started, the episode that was the beginning of a prestigious police drama that took the crime genre to a new level. The series started off with the search for four policemen to assemble a team split into two patrolling the streets of Newtown in cars codenamed Zed-Victor 1 and Zed-Victor 2, best known as Z-Cars.

The idea behind this was from the death of a policeman whilst on duty which automatically tells us that this show is not going to be like Dixon of Dock Green, same with the policemen in this series as they are not all squeaky clean friendly bobbies at the end of the street types, they are more realistic and we do see into their personal lives as well which does feel slightly like a 1960's kitchen sink drama but it works, for example we see into the family life of PC Bob Steele (Played by Jeremy Kemp) which shows that he doesn't have a good relationship with his wife and implies that their arguments go over the top with injuries his wife shows to PC Bert Lynch (Played by James Ellis) who sympathises with her.

So far we have been introduced to the first two policemen the series will focus on, now for the last two. The next is PC Jock Weir (Played by Joseph Brady) who has the least screen time as the character is also a rugby player who is in a bit of a state when we see him so we have not much of an idea what the character is like. Last but not least we are introduced to PC "Fancy" Smith (Played by Brian Blessed) in which is perhaps  the fun part of the episode when a bar room brawl starts out and Fancy just stays outside in good comedic timing, not sure if it's meant for a bit of light heartedness or not since most of the episode has a dark tone to it.

The two officers that assemble this team are DCI Charlie Barlow (Played by Stratford Johns) and DS John Watt (Played by Frank Windsor) both brilliantly played as they are the main focus of the episode and it's interesting to hear their recommendations with a less than welcome reception from their superiors which show that they don't pick any ordinary policemen for the team. So for a first episode it works really well, the actors are great and the characters do have a depth to them.

I do think that this is going to be one interesting series to review, if that's any sign that I will review more episodes then yes, it is.