Brilliant ‘good old fashioned’ fun type comedy.
Great characters, in a great set of silly scenarios. Written by Ben Elton, The Thin Blue Line ran for two series, totalling 14 episodes, airing in 1995-6. Rowan Atkinson is, of course, superb. And the rest of the cast are all very good too. My favourite, amongst the others, is plain-clothes DI Derek Grim (David Haig), who is just brilliant.
The chemistry between Fowler (Atkinson) and Grim is probably my favourite part of the show. Grim is just utterly hilarious: vain, uptight, dumb, angry, frustrated: ‘It’s my arse, and if you stuff it, I’m gonna end up very red in the face’!
Constables Goody, Habib and Gladstone are all great fun. And the series is thoroughly enjoyable throughout. There are cameos from numerous familiar luvvies, from Ben Elton as a crusty, to Stephen Fry as a deranged outdoorsman. It has a kind of quaint almost innocent old-fashioned vibe to it, which I love.
Throughout both series the marital goings on, or rather not goings on, between Fowler and his ‘girlfriend’, Sergeant Dawkins are a constant theme. There’s a similar ongoing thing between Goody and Habib.
In the second series Fowler gives a series of introductory talks to camera – as pictured above – as part of the format. Ben Elton, Rowan Atkinson and co. have given us all a terrifically sweet and very funny series. If only the police really were as silly and entertaining as this.
A shame there were only two series. Highly recommended.