The adventures of the vice squad detectives of the Miami Police Department.
Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and Ricardo Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) are the two main protagonists who zip around 80s Miami drug-busting and prostitute chasing and all the usual things vice cops get up to. As well as the storylines, the show was well known for its fashion statements and expensive hardware (notably cars and power boats) and fantastic musical scores by Jan Hammer. The show almost made a name for itself by using popular icons rather than the usual actors as guests: Phil Collins being one such.

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First broadcast in 1993, NYPD Blue was created by Steven Bochco and David Milch, the team responsible for the magnificent, mould-breaking Hill Street Blues, which had featured both of NYPD's principal stars, David Caruso (Detective John Kelly) and Dennis Franz (Detective Andy Sipowicz). Here, their partnership takes up most of the screen time, a break from the ensemble feel of the earlier show (though he's the boss, James McDaniel's Lieutenant Fancy, for instance, is a peripheral figure). But there are familiar Bochco themes. Tough-but-put-upon cops struggle with their own problems as well as the criminal element: Kelly is going through a divorce, while Sipowicz is fighting alcoholism.

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Prime Suspect stars Helen Mirren as detective chief inspector Jane Tennison. The original story, first aired in 1991, was written by Lynda La Plante and established a compelling template--grisly murders, fascinating operational details, well-written characters and believable domestic drama.

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Perhaps the most easily parodied action series of its era, The Professionals was the one about the gruff but fatherly counter-terrorist top cop Cowley (Gordon Jackson) and his favourite surrogate sons, the curly haired ex-copper Ray Doyle (Martin Shaw) and taciturn-but-pouting ex-mercenary William Bodie (Lewis Collins). As set out by series creator Brian Clemens (veteran of the more fantastical Avengers), their job was to stop threats to the government, visiting dignitaries or the general public "by any means necessary". What this boiled down to was dashing about, leaping out of cars, getting into thump-happy fistfights, leering at every "bird" who passed by as if they were trying to prove something, wearing eye-abusing late-70s leisure wear well beyond the sell-by date, potting baddies with guns hauled out of their smart shoulder holsters, and occasionally choking back manly tears when another of the trio was wounded. Fantastic.

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The Sherlock Holmes Collection is a comprehensive box set containing all 36 hour-long episodes plus the five feature-length specials of Granada TV's classic series starring Jeremy Brett. Originally screened in 1984, the series ran intermittently until the mid-1990s, when the leading actor's chronically failing health forced a final end (he died in 1995). Still hailed by many as the definitive Holmes, Brett presented the great detective as a solitary, nervous and depressive personality whose brilliant flashes of inspiration were interrupted by long bouts of introspection and drug-induced lethargy.
Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Basil Rathbone Collection - 14 classic Sherlock Holmes adventures dating from 1939-46 starring Basil Rathbone as the great detective and Nigel Bruce as Dr Watson. Rathbone had made his name in Hollywood playing villains (memorably against Errol Flynn in 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood) but his aquiline features and effortlessly haughty demeanour made him the ideal candidate to don Holmes's deerstalker. Bruce's "incorrigible bungler" is a bumbling comedy sidekick, unlike Conan Doyle's conception of the rather unimaginative but nevertheless astute Doctor. However, the pairing deservedly became the stuff of screen legend.

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The Complete Sherlock Holmes
BBC Radio Collection

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This action-drama series was the forerunner to The Sweeney and aimed squarely at the same audience. The first ever series from the famous Euston Films division of Thames Television. Stars George Sewell and the suave Patrick Mower.

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Dave Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) and Ken 'Hutch' Hutchinson (David Soul) are plainclothes cops patrolling the streets of an unnamed American city (portrayed by Los Angeles) in a 1973 red Grand Torino. Dark-haired Starsky, who has an unflagging appetite and a quick quip for any situation, and tall, blond, Hutch, who is more soulful and serious, are not just partners on the job, they are also close friends. But their unorthodox methods are endlessly frustrating for their boss, Captain Dobey (Bernie Hamilton). The duo has a powerful ally on the street, however, in Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas), a shady character who proves Starsky and Hutch with plenty of inside information.
Aaron Spelling's iconic 70s show portrays LA's finest as madly heroic creatures of reckless determination and physicality. The first season is also startlingly brutal for a primetime US show—it was later significantly toned down, much to the regret of fans—while maintaining a delightful, often incongruous, self-deprecating humour. From the series pilot on, partners and best pals Starsky and Hutch work a fine line between predator and prey, relentlessly pursuing suspects while also snared by crime chieftains or short-sighted superiors.

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1970s Brit-cop action from Jack Regan (John Thaw) and George Carter (Dennis Waterman) in The Sweeney. Classic British television from before the advent of political correctness.

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Barry Foster plays Dutch detective Piet Van Der Valk in this popular 1970s programme set in Amsterdam.

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