Stand & Deliver (1)

[rabbithog]

i thought if you were special branch you didnt need a warrant card????

[Banner1979]

@rabbithog Well, they're still police officers, aren't they? :)

[kawasaki5187]

I agree, seen them both, a real star

[Banner1979]

@kawasaki5187 Before he died, he also guested on The Bill playing a retired copper who was still a tough guy at heart.

[kawasaki5187]

Love George Sewell and he was very funny as a bogus Policeman in "Rising Damp"

[Banner1979]

@kawasaki5187 He also starred opposite Dennis Waterman twice more in The Sweeney and Minder in which he was excellent as a washed-up artist.

[crazyjonhere]

aint it funny the sweeney did 52 episodes and special branch did 53, great series wish i'd watched it but i was 3 at the time its, about time itv showed it again as there showing the sweeney & ci5 to death at the mo

[Banner1979]

@crazyjonhere I wholeheartedly agree with you. ITV4 should show Special Branch, mainly the later series that had Sewell and Mower in them. That's when it got better. I think UK Gold showed this in the '90s and Granada Plus might have shown a few eps, too.

[Voxac100b]

George Sewell was a very natural actor great also as Vic Tolman in the Sweeney episode Bait check it out folks.

[reedywomble97]

I like this episode in particular, the producers of The Sweeney cast Dennis Waterman as DS George Carter after he guest-starred as Frank Gosling in this episode of Special Branch, it also featured Stephanie Turner who would go on to play George Carters wife Alison in The Sweeney and Inspector Jean Darblay in Juliet Bravo for the BBC

[Banner1979]

Both Steph and Dennis were terrific in this one. No wonder they were picked for The Sweeney straight after this. The guy playing Frank's cousin (the fat bloke) was in the first ever Sweeney episode and of course, Pat Mower was Col in 2 eps.

[GER08ify]

@Banner1979 Frank's cousin Ron was played by Ray Mort, according to IMDB he died in 1992, however they don't give a birth date. Ray Mort was the landlord in Oh No it's Selwyn Froggitt,and he was in quite a few Tv programmes - The Chinese Detective, Coronation Street, Juliet Bravo, Bergerac,Only Fools and Horses, The Bill and Minder to name a few.

[Banner1979]

@GER08ify He was a familiar face indeed. I'll always remember his character getting interrogated by Regan and Carter in first ever Sweeney ep Ringer. Regan said to him, "I'll make you drown in your own sweat."

[fremlinskent]

At 5.57 the poster in the background shows starting pay at £19.53 a week!

[fremlinskent]

Banner, it's you again! I've going back in time from The Pros to SB, and here you are!

[Banner1979]

I've seen one or two clips from it. There was a one-off show about '70s TV hard men in Xmas 2006 and they showed a bit of Target.

Blowing up the accent coach, eh? (Lol) I don't think there even was one! (LOL!)

I think in Target, Mower played basically a more harder version of Haggerty from SPECIAL BRANCH.

[0121apj]

banner did u ever see target,the only scene i saw from the series is when u see mower fighting on a moving transit van..hope hes better in this than the sweeney..the grenade at the end of trojan bus should have been thrown at the accent coach...u pompey bas....s LOL

[Banner1979]

Yep, it's from series 4. Mower and Sewell joined in series 3.

Yeah, I know. He would go on to play another tough cop in BBC1's short-lived TARGET which often got complaints for violence.

Mower was one of the show's most memorable villains. He wasn't as thuggish and rough on the surface like the others and was very witty.

[brianclough]

Nice to see Mower acting as a Copper here, he was my favourite villain in the Sweeney episodes.

[0121apj]

never saw this before this episode is from the 4th series right....53 episodes in total

[Banner1979]

Cheers. It is. He is great in this episode, although he plays sort of a villain, with his heart in the right place, but his mind on the other side of the fence, so to speak (lol).

[minderlover]

Nice one Banner. Its nice to see Dennis pre-sweeney