# Chronological Guide to Your UK TV List

## **Spy / Intelligence / Conspiracy (Chronological)**

### **Callan (1967–1972)**

Edward Woodward stars as David Callan, a reluctant, morally conflicted government assassin working for a shadowy department known only as “The Section”. Gritty, bleak and ahead of its time, with Russell Hunter unforgettable as Lonely, Callan’s unhygienic but loyal underworld contact.

### **Special Branch (1969–1974)**

Early seasons star Derren Nesbitt; later seasons introduce George Sewell and Patrick Mower. Begins as a police procedural but evolves into a proto-modern spy show, paving the way for The XYY Man and Strangers.

### **The XYY Man (1976–1977)**

Stephen Yardley plays Spider Scott, a cat burglar involuntarily pulled into intelligence work because of his “XYY” genetic quirk. Features Don Henderson as the unforgettable George Bulman.

### **The Professionals (1977–1983)**

Lewis Collins and Martin Shaw play Bodie and Doyle of CI5, with Gordon Jackson as their steely boss, Cowley. High-octane stunts and Cold War paranoia wrapped in very ‘70s energy.

### **Strangers (1978–1982)**

Don Henderson’s Bulman returns, leading a mismatched unit of misfit detectives. Oddball, atmospheric, and often darker than expected.

### **Running Blind (1979)**

Adaptation of Desmond Bagley’s novel. Stuart Wilson plays an ex-MI6 officer coerced into a dangerous assignment in Iceland. Cold landscapes, Cold War distrust.

### **The Sandbaggers (1978–1980)**

Roy Marsden is Neil Burnside, the icy head of MI6’s Special Operations Section. Famous for its realism, political infighting and total avoidance of glamour. Beloved by real-life intelligence officers.

### **Blood Money (1981)**

Michael Denison, Daniel Hill, and Ingrid Hafner star in this BBC thriller about international terrorism and counterintelligence. Tense and quietly political.

### **Spyship (1983)**

Tom Wilkinson stars in this conspiracy mystery about a trawler mysteriously sunk at sea. Cold War stakes and BBC realism.

### **Chessgame (1983)**

Terence Stamp leads this intelligent, dialogue-driven spy mini-series based on Anthony Price's novels, where investigations hinge on history, subtlety and bureaucratic tension.

### **The Inside Man (1984)**

Roy Marsden again, this time as an MI6 officer caught between political agendas and moral dilemmas. Underseen, well-acted.

### **Bulman (1985–1987)**

Retired Bulman becomes a private detective. Don Henderson carries the show with eccentric brilliance.

### **Sleepers (1991)**

Nigel Havers and Warren Clarke are two Soviet sleeper agents reactivated just as the USSR collapses — except they’ve gone native. Darkly funny and bittersweet.

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# **Police / Detective / Crime (Chronological)**

### **Public Eye (1965–1975)**

Alfred Burke plays Frank Marker, a private investigator scraping by on menial cases. Grounded, melancholy and incredibly influential.

### **The Sweeney (1975–1978)**

John Thaw and Dennis Waterman as Regan and Carter — hard-drinking, rule-bending Flying Squad detectives. Raw, loud, iconic.

### **Law & Order (1978)**

Four linked plays by Trevor Preston, starring Derek Martin and Ken Campbell. A devastating depiction of corruption across police, courts and prisons.

### **Out (1978)**

Tom Bell plays a hardened ex-con trying to find who betrayed him. Stylish, shadowy, and gripping — one of Euston Films’ best.

### **Hazell (1978–1979)**

Nicholas Ball as the cheeky, charming Cockney PI. Tough when needed but lighter than most late-70s crime series.

### **Turtle’s Progress (1979–1980)**

Spin-off from *The Hanged Man* focusing on Turtle (John F. Landry), a small-time crook pulled into bigger conspiracies. Gritty with comedic edges.

### **The Gentle Touch (1980–1984)**

Jill Gascoine as DI Maggie Forbes — the first British police show led by a woman. Social issues, moral ambiguity, and strong character work.

### **The Enigma Files (1980)**

Tom Adams plays a police officer working a cold-case unit. Low-key but atmospheric, full of bureaucratic frustrations.

### **Fox (1980)**

Ray Winstone, Peter Vaughan and Elizabeth Spriggs in a superb family drama mixed with crime and politics. Very British, very ‘80s, very good.

### **Wolcott (1981)**

George William Harris stars as a Black detective navigating racism and corruption in East London. Short-lived but historically important.

### **Dead Head (1986)**

Denis Lawson is a small-time crook framed for murder and dragged into a grotesque conspiracy. Stylish, noir-influenced, almost surreal.

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# **Political / Dystopian / Paranoia (Chronological)**

### **The Guardians (1971)**

Britain under a pseudo-military “benevolent” dictatorship. Stars Cyril Luckham and Derek Smith. Chillingly plausible, decades ahead of its time.

### **The Organisation (1972)**

Nigel Davenport plays an industrial troubleshooter battling corporate corruption and moral decay. Boardroom politics as warfare.

### **The Challengers (1972)**

Political manipulation meets media games. Features Lynn Redgrave and Suzanne Neve.

### **State of Emergency (1975)**

Crisis drama about government reactions to civil unrest. Slow-burn and realistic.

### **The Hanged Man (1975)**

Colin Blakely stars as a businessman targeted for assassination who uncovers systemic corruption. Thriller with corporate-paranoia vibes.

### **Diamond Crack Diamond (1974)**

Corporate espionage and double-dealing; lesser-known but fits the era’s paranoia.

### **1990 (1977–1978)**

Edward Woodward again — this time as a journalist resisting an authoritarian, censorship-heavy British state. Prescient and tense.

### **An Englishman’s Castle (1978)**

Starring Kenneth More, Anthony Bate and Isla Blair. Set in a Britain quietly occupied by Nazis; eerie, subtle, psychological.

### **Beloved Enemy (Play for Today, 1981)**

A taut political–corporate thriller written by David Leland and directed by Alan Clarke, focusing on a British multinational quietly negotiating an industrial deal with a Soviet-bloc country. What begins as simple commercial outsourcing soon exposes the blurred lines between corporate profit, government influence and Cold War realpolitik.  Starring Graham Crowden and Tony Doyle.

### **United Kingdom (Play for Today, 1981)**

A housing estate turns into a battleground between residents and militarised policing. Stars Ricky Tomlinson and Bill Paterson.

### **The Brack Report (1982)**

Peter Barkworth plays a scientist blowing the whistle on nuclear safety failures. Slow-burning political tension.

### **A Very British Coup (1988)**

Ray McAnally as a socialist PM besieged by intelligence services, the media and entrenched elites. Devastatingly good.

### **The One Game (1988)**

Patrick Malahide and Michael Maloney star in this surreal story about a powerful businessman forced into a psychological “game” by a vengeful ex-partner.

### **GBH (1991)**

Michael Palin and Robert Lindsay in Alan Bleasdale's masterpiece of politics, manipulation and breakdown — tragic, funny, frightening.

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# **Dystopian / Apocalyptic / Collapse (Chronological)**

### **No Blade of Grass (1970) – Film**

Nigel Davenport in a grim ecological-collapse survival story. Features a very *Survivors*-like tone.

### **The Changes (1975)**

Victoria Williams stars in a Britain where people suddenly turn violent against technology. Folk-horror meets collapse fiction.

### **Survivors (1975–1977)**

Lucy Fleming, Denis Lill and Ian McCulloch lead this iconic post-plague drama. Hard-edged, philosophical and beautifully shot.

### **Noah’s Castle (1979)**

Simon Gipps-Kent and Marcus Francis in a YA drama about food shortages, authoritarian drift and family tensions.

### **Quatermass (1979)**

John Mills plays an ageing scientist witnessing societal breakdown amid cults and cosmic threats. Atmospheric and sad.

### **The Flipside of Dominick Hide (1980)**

Peter Firth as a time traveller from a future utopia discovering messy human life in 1980. Philosophical, warm, political.

### **Another Flip for Dominick (1982)**

Sequel exploring more of the future society and its ethical blind spots.

### **Whoops Apocalypse (1982)**

Satirical comedy about nuclear brinkmanship with John Cleese, Peter Cook and Alexei Sayle. Silly but dark.

### **Day of the Triffids (1981)**

John Duttine stars in this excellent BBC adaptation. Moody, bleak and faithful to the novel.

### **The Mad Death (1983)**

Terrifying rabies-outbreak drama starring Richard Heffer and Barbara Kellerman. Very unsettling.

### **Z for Zachariah (1984)**

Nuclear-winter survival drama starring Pippa Hinchley and Anthony Andrews. Psychological more than action-driven.

### **Knights of God (1987)**

Starring Gareth Thomas, John Woodvine and Patrick Troughton. A YA dystopia where a fascistic religious order rules Britain.

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# **Psychological / Uncanny / Paranormal (Chronological)**

### **Shadows of Fear (1970–1973)**

Anthology of paranoia tales featuring actors like George Sewell, Jane Asher, and Ronald Hines. Quiet, unsettling.

### **The Mind Beyond (1976)**

Paranormal anthology starring Colin Blakely, Clive Francis and others. Psychological rather than supernatural shock.

### **The Omega Factor (1979)**

James Hazeldine plays an investigator in a covert psychic-research department. Louise Jameson co-stars. Conspiracy meets occult unease.

### **The Nightmare Man (1981)**

Stars Celia Imrie and James Warwick. A remote Scottish island, a mysterious killer, and Cold War secrets. Atmospheric and very tense.

### **Artemis 81 (1981)**

Starring Hywel Bennett, Sting, and Dan O’Herlihy. Esoteric, symbolic, haunting — British television at its strangest.

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# **Foreign Settings / Michael J. Bird School (Chronological)**

### **The Lotus Eaters (1972–1973)**

Ian Hendry and Wanda Ventham as an expat couple in Crete with dark pasts. Melancholic and superb.

### **Who Pays the Ferryman? (1977)**

Jack Hedley as a former soldier returning to Crete after decades, facing old debts and wounds.

### **The Aphrodite Inheritance (1979)**

Peter McEnery gets caught in a web of Cyprus politics, myth and mystery. Alexandra Bastedo co-stars.

### **The Dark Side of the Sun (1983)**

Peter Egan stars in a Rhodes-set thriller mixing murder, conspiracy and supernatural hints.

### **Maelstrom (1985)**

Teri Keane inherits a fortune in Norway and becomes entangled in death and deception. Great scenery.

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# **Corporate / Business Drama (Chronological)**

### **The Plane Makers / The Power Game (1963–1969)**

Patrick Wymark as the ruthless John Wilder. Boardrooms as battlegrounds; politics and business blending into conspiracy.

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# **Anthology / Single Plays (Chronological)**

### **Rumour (ITV Playhouse, 1970)**

Industrial sabotage and media manipulation. Stars George Baker and Gemma Jones.

### **Night Conspirators (Armchair Theatre, 1965)**

Cold War plotting with a claustrophobic tone.

### **The News-Benders (30-Minute Theatre, 1971)**

Starring Donald Pleasence and Nigel Davenport. Creepy, visionary story about media control.

### **The Exorcism (Dead of Night, 1972)**

A dinner party goes terrifyingly wrong; political guilt underpins the supernatural horror. Anna Cropper and Clive Swift star.

### **Strong Stuff, This Spinach (Play for Today, 1972)**

Absurdist political satire, sharper than it first appears.

### **Stronger Than the Sun (Play for Today, 1977)**

Antonia Bird directs; Kate Nelligan stars as a woman uncovering a terrifying state conspiracy.

### **Red Shift (Play for Today, 1978)**

Timothy Spall in a time-spanning drama linking three violent eras through trauma and symbolism.

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# **Miscellaneous / Genre-Bending (Chronological)**

### **Dangerous Knowledge (1970s, exact year varies by source)**

John Gregson in a twisty, underappreciated spy-conspiracy story involving murder and corporate deceit.

### **The Jensen Code (1973)**

YA thriller starring Andrew Johnson. Hypnosis, espionage, and adult-level paranoia.

### **Codename Icarus (1981)**

Barry Angel and Martin Smith star in this children’s serial that’s really a sophisticated conspiracy thriller about manipulating gifted children.

### **Edge of Darkness (1985)**

Bob Peck is phenomenal as a detective investigating his daughter’s murder and uncovering nuclear-state corruption. Joe Don Baker co-stars. One of the greatest British dramas ever made.

### **Bird of Prey (1982 & 1984)**

Richard Griffiths and Carole Royle in a gripping cyber-conspiracy thriller — proto-cyberpunk with a deeply human core.

### **Archer’s Goon (1992)**

Adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’ novel; bizarre, witty, political-in-a-soft-way. Stars Spencer Leigh and Fiona Shaw.