Between the Lines is gripping police drama about the CBI investigating abuse of police powers and corruption within the force. The first remarkable thing is that BTL has a fairly unlikeable protagonist: womanizing career police man Tony Clarke who is really blackmailed into joining the CBI. He acts so irresponsibly in his personal life throughout the series that it is really difficult to sympathize with him (and he wears the worst fitting suits I have ever seen). On the other hand he is very emotional about his job and also really professional about it (unless his private life or hormones get in the way) in spite of the fact that he really hates his job. His team consists of bisexual Maureen Connell and veteran copper Harry Naylor whose wife develops a terminal illness in the second series. These three really complex characters really carry the show. The standard of writing is also fairly high. The stories are complex and satisfying which is not easy to achieve in a 45 minutes format. However, in the second season they become formulaic in terms of the CBI's impotence to deal with corruption in the force. You can't help wondering why they bother at all. Apart from the strong performances of the cast (with the possible exception of the rather one dimensional DCS Graves) the series also has some episodes that are visually very well made particularly the inteview situation. For 1992 the first season is also groundbreakling in its depiction of nudity as you see some full frontal shots of Clark's beautiful girlfriend and you see Jaye Griffith's bottom.

It seems unlikely anyone would be able to make a series like this in today's television climate, given the preference today for light drama with happy endings, which this series eschewed almost constantly, almost masochistically so. Yet no series made since this one ever felt as real and believable as this did. The second series moved away from police complaints to the increasing involvement of MI5 and managed to be even better. Certainly the portrayal of Box 500 here seemed much more real and convincing than "Spooks". Indeed this is the series that "Spooks" wishes it was and the plot lines featured were much more gripping and believable than "Spooks" managed without having to resort to our heroes saving London and/or the world every week. Even the maligned third series, where Clark, Naylor and Connell go private, is still better than most dramas today. The producers had the good sense to call it a day after the third series and at least every episode ever made is preserved for posterity on DVD to be savoured again and again. When will something of the quality of this series ever get made again? Not for a long time, if ever, I fear.

"Between the Lines" was a show which reflected British television's attitude to the police in the Thatcher years...namely, that the police are brutal, corrupt and fascist. If the show was merely about corrupt officers, then it could have made for gripping drama, but it had a heavy political agenda so corruption was always from up on high and institutionalised. One or two episodes of this might have been gripping, but it was constant and often Neil Pearson's character would often act as an apologist for the criminals. One of the more ludicrous episodes featured Pete Postlethwaite as a senior Metropolitan Police commander putting down a riot (by good lefties or course) which he agitated and he ends up quoting the speech made in the Falklands War: "The flag is flying over Port Stanley"...oh, is this a dig at Thatcher? But apart from the student level politics, the show gained notoriety and earned the nickname "Between the Loins" for its preponderance for sex scenes bang on the stroke of the 9 o'clock watershed. Any chance for Pearson to drop his trousers (but always in a sensitive way) and he'd grab it. Sometimes it seemed he'd abandon a case to get some more sex...can't say I blame him.

Investigating corruption is a police matter. But what happens when the corruption comes from inside? When those entrusted with keeping law and order are those who break the vital code of conduct? Between the Lines is a powerful and controversial drama which tackled the touchy subject of the police investigating themselves. Created by John Wilsher and produced by Tony Garnett, the man behind the controversial 1970s series Law and Order, the drama is a tough and uncompromising analysis of that dilemma.Neil Pearson, perhaps best known for his role as womanising reporter Dave in Drop The Dead Donkey, took the lead role as Det Supt Tony Clark, ambitious head of Mulberry Street police station, who is asked to launch an investigation into his own men. Recruited by the Complaints Investigations Bureau, he soon finds himself in the uncomfortable and loathesome situation of infiltrating his own station.The first two series were superb, with great support from Tom Georgeson, Siobhan Redmond and the late Tony Doyle of Ballykissangel fame.However, by the time a third run was commissioned, Garnett went against his better judgement and obliged with a lacklustre end to the saga.It was a mistake he wouldn't repeat a few years later for his outstanding series This Life.