Z-Cars: Breakage Review

This shows the start of a changeover for the show, it's in colour, it's got a new title sequence and music, personally I don't like the new music, it basically shows that they were really trying to make it more modern and up to date, I'm not saying that they should not go with the times it's just a preference that I prefer the original title music. From what episodes I have seen, they also seem less focused on the Z-Car squads themselves and focus more on the investigations of promoted DC Skinner (Played by Ian Cullen).

This first part of this story is about DC Skinner investigating theft of property (Just like the previous story I reviewed, but more interesting this time) from someone called "George T. Wood" (Played by Porridge's Fulton Mackay), a character who is mysterious as we are not sure whether to believe his story or not as he talks vaguely, saying that he is travelling, living in doss houses, we are not even sure if that is his real name because at the end, he goes to another doss house under the name of Wilfred Miller which was taken from DS Wilf Miller (Played by Geoffrey Whitehead), sure enough though, "George" did have some money stolen and got the money back but it does make me wonder who he really is and what are his real plans?

The second part is a lot more dramatic and even surprised me at one point, it's about Skinner investigating someone on the roof on an industrial estate that looks as if he may about to commit suicide, the person (Who we don't know the name of by the way as he never says his name) is obviously disturbed as we see him cry one minute and laugh the next so it's obvious he has mental problems, so as a precautionary measure PC Quilley (Played by Douglas Fielding) takes a ladder around the building and tries to stop the person with his increasingly aggressive behaviour as Skinner tries to talk to him, now this is the part that surprised me, PC Quilley tries to apprehend the person but falls through a window and is in serious condition at the end, this does go to show that the writers of Z-Cars are not afraid to have some proper dramatic moments which is very impressive and in some ways memorable. This is a very good representation of a decent episode of Z-Cars in the 1970's.