Z-Cars was a British television series featuring police.
Keith Perry was an avid viewer of Z-Cars. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks [+]John Peel, adapted from The Evil of the Daleks (David Whitaker), Target novelisations (Target Books, 1993).)
Christine Summerfield speculated that the desk sergeant who filed her case had joined the police force because he'd seen Z-Cars as a teenager and thought it would be exciting. (PROSE: Dead Romance [+]Lawrence Miles, Virgin New Adventures (Virgin Books, 1999).)
Z-Cars was among the 20th century Earth television shows broadcast by Reef Station One in the New Earth Republic during the 101st century. (PROSE: Synthespians™ [+]Craig Hinton, BBC Past Doctor Adventures (BBC Books, 2004).)
Behind the scenes[]
- Z-Cars was broadcast on the BBC from 1962 to 1978. It centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown.
- Brian Blessed, Stratford Johns, and Frank Windsor were among the original cast members, while Ian Cullen, David Daker, Marcus Hammond, Bernard Holley, David Jackson, Robert Keegan, Derek Waring, Geoffrey Whitehead, John Woodvine and Stephen Yardley were also regulars. James Ellis played policeman Lynch across the series.
- John Challis, Dudley Foster, John Phillips, Peter Sallis, George Sewell and Jerome Willis all had recurring roles.
- In 1965, the production team of The Daleks' Master Plan hoped to use the Z-Cars set and some of the regular cast for the scenes of "The Feast of Steven" set in a police station. However, Z-Cars producer David Rose withheld his permission for this. (REF: The First Doctor Handbook) The novelisation of the episode, The Mutation of Time, alluded to this by naming the previously-unnamed policemen after some of the Z-Cars regular cast. This would have been Doctor Who's first televised crossover with another series or franchise; instead, the first TV crossover was in Remembrance of the Daleks with its allusion to Bernard Quatermass.
- Elisabeth Sladen had two different roles in the series shortly before she was cast as Sarah Jane Smith. While looking for an actress to play Sarah Jane, Doctor Who producer Barry Letts spoke with Z-Cars producer Ron Craddock, who, having been impressed by Sladen's performances, recommended her for the role. (DCOM: Beginning the End)
- As with Doctor Who, many episodes of Z-Cars were wiped by the BBC once they were believed no longer useful. During the search for missing episodes of Who, several Z-Cars episodes were also found. (DOC: The Missing Years) In fact, the first seven episodes of the first season of Z-Cars were found at the same television station in Cyprus as the surviving episodes of The Reign of Terror. (REF: Wiped! Doctor Who's Missing Episodes)
- A number of Doctor Who actors also appeared in the series, including Carole Ann Ford, Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury, Caroline John, Roger Delgado, Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, Christopher Benjamin, Kate O'Mara, Geoffrey Bayldon, David Warner and many others.
- Christopher Barry, Morris Barry, Rodney Bennett, Lovett Bickford, Gerald Blake, Michael E. Briant, Alan Bromly, Douglas Camfield, Timothy Combe, Fiona Cumming, John Davies, Tristan de Vere Cole, Terence Dudley, Michael Ferguson, Michael Leeston-Smith, Barry Letts, David Maloney, Derek Martinus, Alvin Rakoff, Matthew Robinson, Paddy Russell, Julia Smith, George Spenton-Foster, Shaun Sutton and Rex Tucker all directed episodes
- Bob Baker, Pip and Jane Baker, Kenneth Clarke, William Emms, Peter Grimwade, Peter J. Hammond, Brian Hayles, Elwyn Jones, Dave Martin, Philip Martin, Alvin Rakoff, Anthony Read and Derrick Sherwin all wrote for the series.