Every decade has its own kind of cop show, and in the 1960s and early 70s, following years of national love and acclaim for Dixon of Dock Green, it came time for a new breed of policeman to take to the screen. Set in Newtown, a fictional setting to the North of Liverpool, it captures a time when coppers were leaving the beat for fast-paced response vehicles - the Z-Cars of the title. These colour episodes from 1972 make up our first collection, capturing some of the characters and crimes that shaped the long ago decade of old-school policing, when the concept of a crime family was up to three generations of burglars, shoplifters and smash-and-grabbers. Z-Cars was also innovative in reflecting a changing and challenging time for the police men and women themselves, engaging with their own personal crises and their impact on the force. So sit back and buckle-up as we let the criminal underworld of Newtown know that Z-Cars on the way.
