You're Nicked: TV's Top Cop Shows Part 1 20-11 Quiz

Answer: Ironside

Raymond Burr had been a big hit as the eponymous TV lawyer in "Perry Mason".

In "Ironside" he was the San Francisco Chief of Police who used a wheelchair after an assassination attempt.

"Ironside" ran for 199 episodes from 1967 to 1975.

Answer: Rebus

Two actors, John Hannah and Ken Stott, have played John Rebus in television adaptations of the books by Ian Rankin.

Rankin has never watched any of the shows or listened to any of the actors as he did not want their performances to mess with the image he has in his head of Rebus. Rankin, though, has had bit parts in two of the shows, or so he informed this quiz author in a Twitter conversation.

Rebus was a hard-bitten former soldier, a little too fond of drinking in the Oxford Bar (that is a real place in Edinburgh) and fond of following his gut rather than the book. All this, of course, did not endear him to the 'high heid yins' in the police.

Rebus ran for several seasons from 2000 to 2007. Ian Rankin has written more Rebus books, with his hero retired as well as serving. In 2017, Rankin confirmed he had agreed a new television deal for the show to return.

Answer: Life On Mars

What would happen if a 21st Century cop was transported back in time to a police force of the 1970s? That was the premise behind "Life On Mars" and it showed the often brutal differences in the approach of the cops over the years.

The first season showed in 2006 and 2007.

Versions of the show were made for television in the USA, Spain, Russia, and South Korea.

A sequel "Ashes To Ashes" was broadcast between 2008 and 2010.

Both show titles were lines from David Bowie songs.

Answer: Luther

Idris Alba played "Luther" in the show that ran from 2010 to 2016. Five seasons were broadcast, with a cliff-hanger at the end of season five that left the way open for a sixth.

Luther was a clever but often brutal cop who spared no effort in catching the criminals.

Versions of the show have been made for TV in the USA and in Russia.

Answer: The Fall

From FBI Agent Dana Scully to Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson in "The Fall" Gillian Anderson brought a wealth of experience.

In "The Fall", she played a cop seconded to the Police Service of Northern Ireland to investigate the crimes of a serial killer.

The show ran for three seasons from 2012 to 2016 and earned a Bafta (British Association of Film and Television Arts) award for best drama.

At its best, the viewing figures for "The Fall" were around 3.5 million in season one.

Answer: Cagney and Lacey

"Cagney and Lacey" showed that women could be effective as law enforcers and also that cops were not just one-dimensional and had lives away from their precinct houses and police stations.

Between 1981 and 1989 the lead actors Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless won six Emmys.

The show ran to 125 episodes and four television movies.

Answer: Between The Lines

Between 1992 and 1994, three seasons of the Bafta award winner showed the work of an internal section investigating corrupt officers in the Metropolitan Police Force.

Writing in "The New Statesman" in December 2016, Scottish crime author Val McDermid (who knows a thing or two about plotting taught, suspenseful fiction) put "Line of Duty" up there with "Homicide: Life on the Street", and "The Wire" as shows worth revisiting years on. "The stories they tell and the issues they confront still have a powerful impact today. And they're also great television," she added.

Answer: The Shield

For six years, Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) and his strike team walked the tightrope between good and bad on the mean streets of Los Angeles.

They were effective in taking criminals off the street but lead cop Mackey killed at least six people, including another cop, during the 254 episodes. Others in the strike squad were also killers, and one killed a fellow member of his team. Even the straight-laced precinct captain turned out to be a killer.

Our countdown is from the British newspaper "The Independent", but when Channel 4 television began to stream all seven seasons in 2019, another newspaper, the "Guardian", hailed "The Shield" as "one of the best shows ever created".

The show and members of the cast won a slew of awards, including Emmys and Golden Globes.

Answer: Z Cars

"Z Cars" was an eye opener. Gone were the innocent days when a bobby on the street could get away with a gentle word or an actual (or metaphorical) clip around the ear.

The show was set in the fictional Newtown in the North West of England (Liverpool in disguise?). It focused on the operational lives of a number of policemen - and they generally always were men in those days.

In 1964, the "Guardian" at the time of the 100th episode described "Z Cars" as a show "which opened to some protests and is now everybody's darling".

Between 1962 and 1978 more than 800 episodes were broadcast. It also spawned the successful spin offs "Softy Softly" (120 episodes) and "Softly, Softly: Taskforce" (149 episodes).

Answer: Prime Suspect

The author and show creator Linda La Plante did for women police officers what writers like Ian and Troy Kennedy Martin did for men: dragged them out of the past and into the here and now.

"Prime Suspect" ran from 1991 to 2006 and focused in early days on Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) battling misogyny to lead a murder team.

The show only ran to 15 episodes but won numerous awards.