The Bill #16 – S02 E05 – "Hostage"

adamsmith1922

Jun 30

Watch soon as may disappear

Sgt. Cryer is taking half the relief out on Sun Hill's annual fishing trip. PC Smith and DC Dashwood go to serve a warrant on Russell Archer over a non-appearance in court on a poaching charge. Archer manages to escape from Dashwood and Smith, and is later seen menacing a milkman with a sawn-off shotgun. He later holds up a bookie's and a greengrocer's, but is spotted by PCs Carver and Frank, who give chase. Frank is shot and wounded, and Archer ends up taking an elderly woman hostage in a retirement village. With the fishing trip cancelled, DS Roach takes charge of the siege operation until DI Galloway and Ch. Supt Brownlow arrive. Attempts to contact the increasingly unstable Archer fail until he asks to speak to Sgt Cryer, whom he saw in the betting shop. Cryer enters the flat and attempts to talk Archer into giving himself up. With WPC Ackland posing as a Meals on Wheels driver, Galloway, Roach and PT17 officers storm the flat, and Archer is shot dead just as he is about to surrender..

The Bill is a British police procedural television series, first broadcast on ITV from 16 August 1983 until 31 August 2010. The programme originated from a one-off drama, Woodentop, broadcast in August 1983.

The programme focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work. The Bill was the longest-running police procedural television series in the United Kingdom, and among the longest running of any British television series at the time of its cancellation. The title originates from "Old Bill", a slang term for the police.

Although highly acclaimed by fans and critics, the series attracted controversy on several occasions. An episode broadcast in 2008 was criticised for featuring fictional treatment for multiple sclerosis. The series has also faced more general criticism concerning its levels of violence, particularly prior to 2009, when it occupied a pre-watershed slot. The Bill won several awards, including BAFTAs, a Writers' Guild of Great Britain award, and Best Drama at the Inside Soap Awards in 2009, this being the series' fourth consecutive win.