Waterfront Beat

The BBC had high hopes for this police series that was to be a gritty challenge to The Bill on ITV. The Beeb managed to lure Phil Redmond the writer/producer of Brookside to create and write for the show.

The result was a rather dull, tedious serial that somehow managed to get a second season. The stories had self contained episodes with a running story arc about a serial killer.

The series had a young copper called 'Ronnie Barker' who always had his leg pulled because he had the same name of the more famous comedy actor, but they also had a another character called Don Henderson and nobody mentioned that there was a famous actor at the time who also shared the same name.

With plodding characters and boring stories many viewers left this beat quickly.