Strangers (TV series)
| Strangers | |
|---|---|
| Genre |
Crime Mystery Detective |
| Starring |
Don Henderson Dennis Blanch |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of series | 5 |
| No. of episodes | 32 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 58 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Granada Television |
| Distributor | ITV Studios |
| Release | |
| Original network | ITV |
| Picture format | 4:3 |
| Audio format | Mono |
| Original release | 5 June 1978 – 20 October 1982 |
Strangers is a UK police drama that appeared on ITV between 5 June 1978 and 20 October 1982.
After the success of the TV series The XYY Man, adapted from books by Kenneth Royce, Granada Television devised a new series to feature the regular characters of Detective Sergeant George Bulman (Don Henderson) and his assistant Detective Constable Derek Willis (Dennis Blanch). The result was Strangers.
The series began as a fairly standard police drama series with Bulman as its eccentric lead. Its premise was that a group of police officers have been brought together from different parts of the country to the north of England. There, the fact that they are not known locally gives them the opportunity to infiltrate where a more familiar local detective could not. Initially, the team consisted of Bulman, Willis (promoted to Sergeant) and Linda Doran (Frances Tomelty). Their local liaison was provided by Detective Sergeant David Singer (John Ronane); their superior was Chief Inspector Rainbow (David Hargreaves). Despite being based around a comparatively small team of detectives, a regular feature of the programme in its early years was that few episodes featured the entire team, with most using just two or three of the regulars in any major role.
Series two, shown in early 1979, introduced the character of Detective Constable Vanessa Bennett who was played by Fiona Mollison. The same series would be the last to feature the characters Linda Doran and Chief Inspector Rainbow.
The first series was made primarily on videotape, with location footage shot on film. Series two would feature even more film: with the opening episode The Wheeler Dealers being made entirely on film and the season closer, Marriages, Deaths And Births, being entirely on film bar the standard series title sequence and a few scenes at the police station. From series three onwards, the entire production moved to film.
The first series used a mixture of writers with only one - Leslie Duxbury - writing more than one episode. He would contribute one further script, for series two, and it was during the second season that Murray Smith came to the fore as the series' main writer. Having penned the programme's first episode, he wrote all but six of the twenty-five episodes that formed series two to five.
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