The Thin Blue Line

This series was a bit of a step back for Elton and Atkinson after the audaciously original Blackadder and Mr. Bean series. The Thin Blue Line is an old-fashioned farce set in a city police station. That's not to say it's bad--it's actually very funny, just not anything groundbreaking. A lot of the humor derives from playing stereotypes against themselves: our heroes are bumbling cops who manage to make fools of themselves while eventually solving the crimes and making fools of the bad guys (not to mention the detective division) in the end. Goody, who could be described as a flaming heterosexual, manages to combine a full repertoire of "nelly" mannerisms with a hopeless crush on Habib. Habib herself is both a stereotype (attractive young female character constantly pursued by almost every male character) and a skewerer of stereotypes. This show has its cake and eats it too, but the viewer is too busy laughing to question any of it. And in the tradition of the best British farces, it goes to unbelievable lengths to track down and hammer home every conceivable double entendre and smutty one-liner. When one finishes groaning and/or laughing, one can't help but admire such perseverance in the pursuit of craft.

The best characters in this sitcom have to be Inspector Fowler and Inspector Grimm. Grimm cracks me up everytime with his bad use of speech and his catchphrase "No Fannying about". I like the idea of the CID and the Police officers not wanting to accept help from each other. Goody is also very funny as is Constable Kray (Series 1). A rare find in the 90's sitcom era thats actually good (Bottom, Vicar of Dibley and Men Behaving badly are the only other good comedies from the decade). British comedy at its best as always.

I had all the episodes of TTBL on tape at one stage. The whole family watched them over and over. Ben Elton must be one of the best writers going. To spoof a police station and have such a variety of characters is fantastic. Each episode a comic delight. This show suits just about any age group too.

I have heard that English Comedy is excellent , so has been proved by the masterpieces throughout the years "Monty Python" , "Fawlty Towers" and "Black Adder", but recently i was lucky enough to watch this series , and it was lovely . It was almost the feel i had when i saw blackadder that "Wish the Print was a bit better" although i am not a slightest bit annoyed by the darkness in the lighting, in fact it is almost ironic for it truly portrays British "Dark" Comedy.

The thin Blue Line is a series which sets up in a small town of england called Gasforth where the cast resides mostly at their work station i.e. Police Station, The police consists of two parties The Uniformed "Bell Topped" Coppers and the upto date and rather modern Criminal Investigation Dept. "CID" The Main Characters in the Series are the Uniformed coppers 1.Inspector Fowler (Rowan Atkinson) 2.Constable Goody 3. Constable Gladstone 4.Constable Maggie Habib and Sargeant Dawkins and the CID consists of Derek Grim and Inspector Garry Boyle.

The Whole plot is actually the constant arguments and differences b/w the CID and the Blues and ever episode is based on both sides constant bafoonaries.

The comedy in this series is unique and tummy hurting till the very end, the best thing about it is that unlike black adder where edmund black adder is the one with the last laugh in jokes , here every character has his punch line and laughs i love it and hope that everyone appreciate the true art of Humour, the editors and writers are same as of black adder which includes Rowan Atkinson and Ben elton.

The biggest mistake that the bbc made after almost canceling black adder was that to cut the thin blue line into only 14 epis and then hack the show of ....................

Buch of egg heads.

Love the show and recommend it to any decent man or woman , who wants to view elegant , "CLEAN" humor (by clean i mean its totally absent from any nudity) but the material is hilarious " Two things that an American cannot beat the British at........ Clean and unique Humor and Rock and Roll"

Ben Elton, one of the creators of Blackadder, got back together with Rowan Atkinson for two seasons and twelve episodes of this unexpectedly low key situation comedy about life at a police station in a sleepy section of the U.K. Beyond arresting the occasional shoplifter or student prankster, they have next to nothing to do. This does not sit well with the action-starved CID man Grimm (whose insane tirades on the state of Great Britain are an every episode treat) but does not seem to worry anybody else. The emphasis here is, for once, not on the outrageous or the farcical, but at finding the humor in small everyday happenings.

Atkinson's comedy skills are as impeccable as ever, although after playing the Machiavellian Blackadder for years, followed by apocalyptic silent cinema throwback Bean, Atkinson had to grope around a little for the first couple of episodes to get the right subtle note with his middle aged public servant Insp. Fowler. The racially and gender mixed ensemble worked right away, and this is one of the show's strengths, along with Elton's scripts. It was as if Elton and Atkinson decided to show the world that although they had spent years redefining the boundaries of TV comedy, they could do traditional forms too, so there. This is a small gem of a series and worth discovering, especially since it is so little known beside Atkinson's other series.