The Bill 2002 onwards.

[Leej88]

This is when the show became like a soap,7 characters were killed off 6 in a fire at the station that is way too many and we did not get a chance to grieve for them, Plus we had Gabriel Kent storyline that went on too long and by that point, I had given up at that point to lose good characters like Monroe and Conway and making characters like Boyden unlikeable was a bad way to go.

[Alberon]

Not the Bill. Just some soap slop put on in the same spot with the same name and most of the same actors.

It wasn't the real Bill.

I think the real Bill did come back for the last few years, though.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Just looking up when I last saw bits and pieces of it. Some copper was into the drugs which was apparently 2009, which seems far too late.

Anyway in looking at that I see there was an episode called 'Assault on Sun Hill' which just makes me think they did a bargain-bin single-episode version of a John Carpenter film.

[Fambo Number Mive]

This is when the show became like a soap,7 characters were killed off 6 in a fire at the station that is way too many and we did not get a chance to grieve for them, Plus we had Gabriel Kent storyline that went on too long and by that point, I had given up at that point to lose good characters like Monroe and Conway and making characters like Boyden unlikeable was a bad way to go.

I agree, although I never wanted to grieve for the dead characters. It was really weird how they decided to turn it into a completely different genre full of bland good looking robot characters. Gina Gold was the only good addition. When you consider how many soaps there are on ITV already, who needs another one? Maybe they should have turned Coronation Street into a crime drama to compensate.

Series 14-16 were some of the best series, in my view. Series 17 onwards it started to get soapy. I find it unrealistic that they would have transferred Daly (my favourite character). Maybe Deakin as the DI would have been transferred, I don't know. I think in the last few series it started to get more like a crime drama but the characters were still more bland.

Chandler started off as an interesting character but became far too unbelievable. I liked the early Chandler who was a more aggressive and media savvy Brownlow. The whole Micky Webb and Meadows against Chandler was a lot of old shite, as was the whole Jim and June Ackland romance.

I don't think I've known a successful show ever been taken in a different direction quite that much before.

[BlodwynPig]

When they replaced Reg Hollis with Screech from Saved By the Bill

[Leej88]

The Don Beech scandal was the beginning of the end for the show 16 years before it went to crap.

[pigamus]

I think it jumped the shark when Viv Martella died. I remember the episode after that being really crap, like neither the writers nor the actors were up to it.

[Leej88]

When Viv was killed it was a shock then they kept killing people left right and centre, Conway, the 6 in the fire, Chandler, Cassie, Kerri, ken, Andrea, the woman reg fancied on the desk, Gabriel etc.

[Gurke and Hare]

I've just watched a 1994 episode that had Mickey Pearce in it.

Slightly cliched thing to say, but it was never the same post-Burnside.

[Leej88]

from 84 to 01 it was a police drama then it was made a soap the sun hill fires were done for ratings but we lost alot of characters,Did Derek need to die he was in the show for 14 years.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Viv was killed in Series 9 - quite a way back.

I liked Cass Rickman, it was a shame they killed her off.

The whole Gilmore-Ashton-Young love triangle was a load of rubbish, and took up so much time. In the old days, they knew how to develop characters. Galloway as the angry DCI barely treading water, Tosh Lines, six kids and no good with money, Daly versus Beech. Then it was PC Soapstar in love with PC Soapstar who is cheating on PC Soapstar while Inspector Soapstar goes on the rampage with a machine gun while DCI Soapstar is in love with a horse or something.

[Leej88]

Characters were killed off every few months it seemed about 35 officers lost their lives at sun hill during its run.