History of The Bill - 2002-2007: Serial Format

2002-2007: Serial Format

During 2002, Executive Producer Richard Handford left the show at the start of the year, being replaced on a temporary basis by Chris Parr. In February, Paul Marquess become the shows producer. Paul Marquess who had previously worked on Brookside, changed the format of The Bill to a serial one, rather than the previous stand alone episodes which included a soap opera narrative.

2002 gave way to several major storylines and the axing of characters, such as the murder of Chief Inspector Derek Conway, when the panda car he was driving was petrol bombed in March that year. Following Conway's death, a memorial fund was organised and a large sum of money was donated by Superintendent Tom Chandler, which prompted Constable Des Taviner to donate an even large sum of money which he had confiscated off a group of youths. While a petrol bombing attack was underway on the police station, Des Taviner discovered that the money was forged. Taviner managed to get hold of a petrol bomb, and threw it into a temporary office in the station yard, where the money was being kept in an attempt to destroy the evidence. Unknown to Des, contractors had left their gas canisters in the office. The canisters ignited leading to the Sun Hill Fire, which caused the death of six characters.

During 2003, a live episode of The Bill was broadcast to commemorate the 20th anniversary since the pilot episode, Woodentop. The live episode centred around a siege in the yard, involving a drunken man taking Detective Constable Juliet Becker hostage with a knife, after Constable Cathy Bradford had failed to search the man. Juliet Becker later died of her injuries. During September 2005, a second live episode was broadcast to celebrate the 50th anniversary of ITV1. The second live episode centred around Sun Hill Police Station under siege, after a grief-stricken father laid siege to the station after the driver of the car that killed his son was found to be not guilty.

During 2005, a second fire at Sun Hill was caused by Police Community Support Officer Colin Fairfax crashing a van laden with explosives into the front office of Sun Hill Police Station, as a revenge attack after he had been dismissed for his racist behaviour towards Constable Leela Kapoor. This storyline caused the death of three characters.

While the series remained fairly grounded in the early days of the new serial format, gradually more sensational and soapy storylines were introduced, many of these aimed to boost the show's ratings. The earliest of these took place in 2002 where viewers witnessed a gay kiss between PC Luke Ashton and Sgt. Craig Gilmore. More of these particular scenes would follow, for example with the lesbian kiss between DS Debbie McAllister and DC Juliet Becker. The show later went on to tackle same-sex marriage in the police force, with the partnership registry of PC Lance Powell and Sgt. Mark Rollins in 2005. The Bill under Marquess featured a male on male rape storyline in 2003, where the victim was DC Mickey Webb, and later in 2005 Sgt. June Ackland revealed she was raped in her teens by a 13 year-old boy. Other sensational aspects of the show were the manner in which characters were killed off - such as the death of PC Cass Rickman at the hands of a serial killer, and that of Superintendent Tom Chandler who shot himself after raping his wife DS Debbie McAllister. Chandler was replaced by Adam Okaro, a black Superintendent played by Cyril Nri. The misguided PC Gabriel Kent became the most prominent character in the darker and sensational storylines, joining the series in early 2003 and lasting out the remainder of the Marquess era as an increasingly unhinged individual. Arguably the most controversial storyline during the Marquess period was the relationship between PC Kent and what viewers assumed was his birth mother, Sgt. June Ackland. PC Kent often stretched viewer credibility with the crimes which he was willing to commit in order to keep his secrets, including deliberately killing his colleague PC Kerry Young while managing to avoid the evidence ever pointing back to him.

Another sensational storyline of Marquess's tenure came when the station suffered another explosion in February 2005, three years after the previous, this time caused by disaffected PCSO Colin Fairfax, who drove a van into the front of the station, killing DC Ken Drummond, (who was in the back of the van), SRO Marilyn Chambers and PC Andrea Dunbar (an undercover journalist). A few months after the episode aired, Paul Marquess was signed away by Endemol, the makers of Big Brother, to head their new drama division. His replacement was Johnathan Young, whose name has appeared on the credits since September 2005. Under Johnathan Young's tenure, a second live episode was broadcast on 22 September 2005 to mark the ITV Network's 50th anniversary. The episode was written by Graham Mitchell and, again, co-produced and directed by Sylvie Boden. The Serial format remained in place for the first few months of Johnathan Young era but gradually the serial format was drifted away.