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"Taggart" Killer (1983)
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Overview
User Rating:
Director:
Writer:
Glenn Chandler (creator)
TV Series:
Original Air Date:
6 September 1983
(Season 1, Episode 1)
Plot:
A murderer is loose in Glasgow and a major police investigation is mounted to find the killer. But one...
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And so it begins.
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Cast
(Episode Cast overview, first billed only) | Mark McManus | ... | Det. Chief Inspector Taggart |
| Alastair Duncan | ... | Det. Sergeant Livingstone (as Neil Duncan) |
| Tom Watson | ... | Superintendent Murray |
| Anne Kidd | ... | Patricia Paterson |
| Roy Hanlon | ... | Charlie Paterson |
| Linda Muchan | ... | Liz Boyd |
| Gerard Kelly | ... | Michael Boyd |
| Joan Scott | ... | Wilma McGowan |
| Frank Wylie | ... | Alec McGowan |
| Mary MacLeod | ... | Mary Ballantyre |
| Hugh Martin | ... | Joe Ballantyre |
| Gerry Slevin | ... | Tom Dalgleish (as Gerard Slevin) |
| Vincent Friell | ... | Billy Dalgleish |
| Harriet Buchan | ... | Jean Taggart |
| Geraldine Alexander | ... | Alison Taggart |
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*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
In the opening scene the camera pans across the bleak, frozen landscape of Scotland. It lingers over the cityscape of Glasgow and comes to rest on the murdered body of a young woman. And so the longest running police series on television begins.
A young woman, Eileen Ballantyne, has been strangled and her body dumped in a river. Her boyfriend, Billy Dalgleish, claims to have left after a row. But Taggart believes he is the murderer.
The first episode tries hard to find a spark between DS Peter Livingstone and Jim Taggart. Livingstone is private school educated. Taggart is the hard boiled copper. Unfortunately Morse and Lewis did it better.
Meanwhile Michael Boyde, an unemployed young man from the flats takes a keen interest in the inquiry. He keeps a scrap book of clippings and his behaviour eventually leads to his wife reporting him to police. A decision that will lead to tragedy.
A second murder occurs. Susan McGowan's body is found dumped in identical circumstances. The investigation now centers on Charlie Patterson, her boss,with whom she had been having an affair. Unfortunately Patterson is a close friend of Supt. Murray who orders Taggart to lay off the suspect.
When a third body is discovered attention turns to Alec McGowan, a shopkeeper who did time for rape. After he is severely beaten by a mob he hangs himself in his own shop. Fortunately Taggart has not given up on Patterson. After forming an alliance with the suspect's wife the police discover some surprising evidence from the couple's past.
It isn't hard to see why the series became so popular. Mark McManus played Taggart for 31 episodes. The series still continues even though he passed away in 1994. Perhaps it is the clever script writing, or the odd characters that inhabit the show. Whatever it is - it works.