Strangers (TV series)

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Strangers was a UK police drama that appeared on ITV between 1978 and 1982.

The series began as a fairly standard police drama series produced by Granada TV. Its premise was that a group of police officers have been brought together from different parts of the country to the north of England. There, the fact that they are not known locally gives them the opportunity to infiltrate where a more familiar local detective could not. Initially, the team consisted of Detective Sergeant George Bulman (played by Don Henderson) and Detective Constables Derek Willis (Dennis Blanch) and Linda Doran (Frances Tomelty). Their local liaison was provided by Detective Sergeant David Singer (John Ronane); their superior was Chief Inspector Rainbow (David Hargreaves). Both Bulman and Willis had appeared on television before, played by the same actors. They were created by Kenneth Royce for a series of novels which were adapted for an earlier television series called The XYY Man. Despite being based around a comparatively small team of detectives, a regular feature of the programme in its early years was that few episodes featured the entire team, with most using just two or three of the regulars in any major role.

Series two, shown in early 1979, introduced the character of Detective Constable Vanessa Bennett who was played by Fiona Mollison. The same series would be the last to feature the characters Linda Doran and Chief Inspector Rainbow.

The first series was made primarily on videotape, with location footage shot on film. As series two progressed film became more prevalent until, with that series final episode, Deaths, Marriages And Births, all but the standard title sequence was on film. From series three onwards, the entire production moved to film.

The first series used a mixture of writers with only one - Leslie Duxbury - writing more than one episode. He would contribute one further script, for series two, and it was during the second season that Murray Smith came to the fore as the series' main writer. Having penned the programme's first episode, he wrote all but six of the twenty-five episodes that formed series two to five.

In series three, Bulman, Willis, Bennett and the newly promoted Detective Inspector David Singer became members of the Inter City Squad under the command of Detective Chief Superintendent Jack Lambie (played by Mark McManus). The basic premise was similar, but rather than covering just the north west of England, the team's remit now extended to the whole country.

By series four, Bulman had also gained promotion - to Detective Chief Inspector - and Willis had become a Detective Sergeant. The same series also introduced the semi-regular character of William 'Bill' Dugdale (Thorley Walters) a member of the British Foreign Office/Secret Services who would become involved when there was a political or intelligence aspect to the investigation. His role was not necessarily to help the detectives; that would only happen when was in the goverment's interest for them to succeed.

The character of Chief Inspector Bulman, still played by Don Henderson, appeared in a subsequent series Bulman by which point he had retired from the police but was still involved in detective work.