TV Live Forum

https://twitter.com/TheSun/status/1383134267019038729

Good news if so.

Providing it's given both a fair chance, and time. I have bad memories of the handling of the Crossroads reboot (done after a similar time frame) - I hope it doesn't go too "soapy" and keeps its grit.

The thing with the three original cast members coming back as consultants seems a bit far fetched as a storyline

I’m sceptical that Fremantle would allow anyone to acquire the rights to The Bill, surely they’d want someone from one of their many production companies to develop a new version much like they did with Wentworth?

Most of the original cast would be too old to be playing police officers anyway

Depends on if they take the show back to the basics or keep the mess made in the 2009 revamp. No silly dramatic music and bring back the proper theme tune.

I'm about half way through 1996 on the UKTV Play episodes now, clearly approaching the end of the show's golden era. Drama are in 2008 now so will be reaching the end in the next few months, will be interesting to see what they do, go back to the start of the return of hour long episodes in 1998 as they've done before, try from the beginning again, or reset to another point in the show's run?

IIRC didn't Drama drop showing the early episodes as they weren't rating very well which was why they jumped to the later 1998 episodes?

I’m sure the basic details in the story are correct but crucially it hasn’t been given the green light. It sounds a bit like the eternal story about Carry on London which gets reported every 2-3 years or so.

To me The Bill was at its best before it turned all soapy in the mid 1990's. I just hope that this doesn't end up like the Minder reboot.

Neil Jones post_id=7163 time=1618607365 user_id=961 Wrote:IIRC didn't Drama drop showing the early episodes as they weren't rating very well which was why they jumped to the later 1998 episodes?

I think later on someone said it was actually down to issues over royalties to actors and the ratings was just the excuse they came up with (IIRC it was said by one of the actors on one of The Bill podcasts). Certainly the way they were pulled, very last minute with the first week and a half's worth 1989 episodes already scheduled before being pulled with less than a week's notice (and therefore most printed TV guides still listing them), and as we can see from the episodes on UKTV Play, 40 episodes from 1989 had already been edited and prepared for broadcast, it seems very rash for it to be ratings related.

Rather unusually though, the 40 episodes from 1989 on UKTV Play that were edited for broadcast on Drama (cut down to around 22-23 minutes and with the pre-2018 Fremantle logo on the end) aren't consecutive, they're episodes 1-20 and 41-60. Episodes 21-40 are uncut and with the current Fremantle logo at the end.

soupie post_id=7165 time=1618607745 user_id=1542 Wrote:I’m sure the basic details in the story are correct but crucially it hasn’t been given the green light. It sounds a bit like the eternal story about Carry on London which gets reported every 2-3 years or so.

Didn't we once have a similar story about the actor who played Jimmy Corkhill trying to do similar with Brookside?

soupie post_id=7165 time=1618607745 user_id=1542 Wrote:I’m sure the basic details in the story are correct but crucially it hasn’t been given the green light. It sounds a bit like the eternal story about Carry on London which gets reported every 2-3 years or so.

The article is far too speculative to suggest that any broadcaster is interested.

I assume they will use a similar effect as used in the Irishman?

Probably too much to hope it will return to the earlier format of being grounded, and the everyday law enforcement activities.

We don't really need more overly dramatic, terrorism, and massive investigations as the storyline. (at least I think thats covered by other police shows)

Law and Order UK was probably the closest we got, but that was a single case per episode, and ideally we would have a mix of longer running investigations, routine incidents, and re-occurring "pastoral" interactions.

That story is far too uncertain for me even for the tabloids

It’s a far distance from “The Bill is coming back” at this stage

I can't believe that The Bill is actually coming back! Hope it's true though!