Customer Reviews

The Bill - The Complete First Series [Region 2]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This fast paced, totally British police drama is the best! Characters are REAL - no makeup or fancy clothes. Just like watching a reality show. Cannot wait for Season 2 to get to the USA!!!!

I love this show,I see it when I'm in Denmark with my family,I wish we could get more of that show in the USA.

it is exhalent only got it for xmass and Im halfway through it again. mybe see it a thirdtime after it realy is very very good

'The Bill', I belatedly learned, seems to refer to 'the cops'.

It is excellently acted, directed and filmed. Scenes tend to be longish and uncut. The camera follows actors around, with a handheld camera, even down long corridors, through warrens of offices and, in one episode, on an extremely realistic, well-choreographed, chase of a sprinter/robber through dangerous-looking rubble -- which the camera lovingly notes as each man's footsteps fall on it.

The actors are seamless, completely real. There is none of this American-style pounds of make-up. The only notable make-up trick is wigs on the men and a heavy amount of hairspray on everybody.

Plots are subtly compelling and each one wraps up with a sense of justice -- and seems original. It shows what you can do with a bit of imagination in a cop show.

Kids' caveat: the third (I think it is) episode includes an unnecessarily dark scene of a reclusive grown son taking a strap off his waist and getting ready to beat his psychotic mother. It ends with a scene of the son lying dead, hands all bloody, while mother sits stonily in the living room. It's possible this man was also a sought-after child molester, but it ended confusingly.

Another episode not for children is episode 5, in which a runaway teenager is found dead by suicide, which is then traced to pornographers who had gotten her hooked on heroin and forced her to perform n their films. In the course of catching the pornographers we suddenly get shots of two hugely implanted buxom women being told to wash each other in a bathtub. As they do this ineptly, it does tend to demystify any erotic value these films have for young blokes, rather than turn them on. Full body bare-naked ladies.

The episode does a good job of showing how two cops, a woman and her male boss, cope with the deeply stirring emotions evoked in each by first displacing a lot of it as anger on everybody around them, then resolving their ptsd by the hard work of solving the case.

I haven't got beyond the fifth yet, so can't comment further. Just came back to order the second season. Unfortunately I don't see one.

I have a friend in England who is a retired Police Detective in
London. I had asked him what among all of the excellent British
police series was most true to life; workings of the real police
department and he suggested I see "The Bill". I had never heard
of it. It is excellent which is not unusual for any British series.
These are the mundane things that happen every day ' day in and
day out. Even though other British series are mostly superb, more
action is happening. It is interesting to see the workaday police
at their jobs. Do I ever wish we had such excellent acting and
stories on our TV. One can only hope some day. But for now we are
extremely lucky to be able to watch some of the finest acting in
the world.

if you have a dvd-cleaner, and if you enjoy repeatedly re-cleaning dvds, you might extract enough bits and pieces of episodes to give you a flavor of what these shows are about, but then you'd be eager to buy from somewhere else that doesn't ship scratched dvds. Discs 1 and 3 were packed upside down so they scratched each other when the hinged package closed.
I haven't yet found time to investigate discs 2 and 4.

There are many British TV series that I think are absolutely fantastic. This is not one of them.

Unlike a lot of people that buy these TV series on DVD because they saw the program when it originally aired, I take a chance on them based upon reviews and comments. From what I read, I thought this series would turn out to be a good one. Boy was I was wrong.

"The Bill" has 0 production values. To some people, that might be seen as "realistic", to me it is "painful to watch" like unedited home movies.

The series is very slow moving. In my opinion, a one hour episode could probably be edited down to 10 minutes without losing any of the story line. That is not to say a series has to be fast paced. Foyle's War - Set 1 is an excellent series with excellent story lines that takes its time to unfold.

But if you are like me and have never actually seen these British TV shows when they originally aired, but are seeking out the better ones, try MI-5, Volume 1 or Cracker: Series 1. "To Be a Somebody" on Cracker - Series 2 with Robert Carlyle, as a hardworking factory worker who goes into a tragic downward spiral, is not to be missed.

I ordered this show because some of the cast members were featured on an episode of Oliver's Twist (the cooking show, not the Dickens movie), and it sounded interesting.

While most British shows appear a little rough to a viewer accustomed to American television, this one is especially so - it appears to have been shot on someone's phone (obviously not back then, but imagine the same quality) or an early home movie recorder. Despite this, the content of the show is quite good - it's a gritty (well, as gritty as the uber-polite Brits can manage) police drama, reasonably well-acted, and with solid enough story lines to keep your attention if you 1) like this sort of thing, and 2) can follow the multi-regional Brit accents.

The packaging is absolutely wretched - the 4 discs cling to thin plastic retainers that flop all over the inside of the case (which has no closing mechanism), and it's left to the slipcase they're housed in to hold them all in. My discs arrived loose in the package, scratched and scuffed because they weren't securely held in, and I've since returned the whole lot to Amazon (awaiting refund). Nevertheless, if you can get past the packaging issues and enjoy British television, this is a worthwhile set, though hardly of the same caliber as some of the more recent offerings.

Recommended with reservations.

The Bill is a British cop show that is meant to be gritty and realistic. I felt that it just came off as low-budget and amateurish. Although the characters are likeable enough, the plots are a little thin. Sometimes they will let bits of the plot unresolved. Other times things are resolved in unlikely ways. There are some interesting personal stories for the show's regulars.

I tend to watch a lot of British TV and movies, so British accents aren't usually a problem for me. However, I had a lot of trouble understanding some of the actors. Apparently these are cockney or working class English accents thick as pea soup. The chief detective was particulary hard to undersatnd. I only get about half of what he says. Also, they use a lot of British slang terms and British police jargon. Again, I know a lot of British slang, but was unaware that "get on your bike" meant something other than getting on your bicycle. Combining the difficult accents and the unfamiliar terms makes it hard for an American to follow the action. Subtitles would definitely help a lot.