Taggart is being taken off the air after 28 years. Who is behind this dastardly deed?
So farewell then, Taggart. With its 1980s rock anthem theme tune, and the fact that its main character died in 1994, leaving the series Taggart-less, the writing may have been on the wall for some time.
After 27 series and 110 episodes over 28 years, just about every Scot with an Equity card has passed before the Taggart cameras, sometimes appearing several times ? one week as a corpse, the next as a key suspect. The record would seem to be five times as five characters, achieved by actor Bill Murdoch. While, sadly, Sir Sean Connery's uncharacteristic tan ruled him out of a part in the gritty Glaswegian drama, Dougray Scott, James McAvoy, John Hannah, Robert Carlyle, Ken Stott and Ashley Jensen all cut an acting tooth on the show.
Even the main characters started as someone else: Alex Norton, who plays the replacement for Taggart, first appeared as a suspicious butcher and Blythe Duff, who has played the part of DS Jackie Reid for 21 years in the same black suit, first came in as a community support officer. Nae glass ceilings in Glasgow.
Morse, Z Cars, The Sweeney, The Bill all came and went; Taggart endured for almost three decades, the longest-running UK police drama. At its peak, it drew 18 million viewers on New Year's Day 1992. But last week the axe fell, with ITV's announcement that it was dropping the series. Immediately, a black border appeared around the Taggart fanclub website, while across the show's international fan base people were tweeting and web-posting the same demand: whodunnit and why?
The fact that it came a week after Scotland voted overwhelmingly for the SNP, leaving many English commentators spitting anti-Scottish bile, seems deeply suspicious.
Was it a warning shot by a pro-union ITV? Was it a move to keep down the Scots, just as George II banished the Gaelic language and banned the kilt in the 18th century to punish the Jacobites? Was it the anti-ginger brigade?
The viewing figures weren't so bad. The series had been sold to almost 80 countries around the world to audiences who, surveys show, are not all made up of expat Scots with a hankering for a view of Glasgow's sandstone streets and proud, rain-drenched landmarks while enjoying warmer climates and better football.
The answer, it seems clear, is immigration. Detectives from around Europe are coming over here and killing off Scottish homegrown policing. From Sweden, there are not one but three Wallanders; from Denmark came The Killing; from France Spiral; and now from Iceland, Jar City. Not one of them even has a dead actor as their main character, Taggart fans will note.
For Scottish Television, which has courageously said it will try to find a new British broadcaster to put on Taggart, the way forward is clear: subtitles. The English will never spot that it's Scottish at all ? as long as Sir Sean stays away.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/15/tracy-mcveigh-who-killed-taggart
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