This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
"Confessions of a Killer" | |
---|---|
The Bill episode | |
Episode no. | Series 21 Episode 14 |
Directed by | Nic Phillips |
Written by | Simon Moss |
Original air date | 23 February 2005 |
"Confessions of a Killer (288)" is an episode of the long-running police procedural television series, The Bill , broadcast in 2005. The episode is significant in the show's history, as it features the events of the second "Sun Hill Fire", which resulted in the death of three officers. [1] The episode attracted over nine million viewers, and was only the second time computer generated imagery had been used on the show. The imagery was used because producing a real explosion and fireball ripping through the station corridors was not possible. [1]
The events of the episode begin with Superintendent Adam Okaro and Inspector Gina Gold trying to track down PC Andrea Dunbar after her exposure as an undercover journalist, unaware she was meeting with her lover, DI Neil Manson. Both were mortified when they discovered that she had been exposed, and as they met again at court ahead of Alan Kennedy's trial, Manson dumped her and accused of her being two-faced, asking if her apology was on or off the record. As they continued to feud, Okaro witnessed it, realising that they had been having an affair. Back at Sun Hill, DCs Ken Drummond and Jim Carver interviewed the Meghan brothers, under suspicion of running a credit card cloning operation. Out on patrol, PCSO Colin Fairfax clashes with PC Leela Kapoor over his handling of an Asian suspect in custody, and his mood with her worsens when she stops him investigating the robbery of an elderly woman's purse, as it is out of his authority to investigate crimes. At court, Alan Kennedy's QC Michael Sherwood (Jonathan Coy) tore Andrea apart on the witness box, causing the case to fall apart. With Kennedy walking free, DS Samantha Nixon slapped Andrea in the face.
Back at the station, Leela and Colin continued to clash, and when she called him a bigot over his remarks about terrorists, he proceeded to spit in her face. While Leela was reluctant to report him, having transferred from her last station for informing on a colleague, PC Tony Stamp went straight to Sergeant Dale Smith to report Colin, who was told by Inspector Gold he'd likely be fired. After clashing with Smithy over going to see Supt. Okaro, he stormed off, despite be warned his career would be over, responding that "It's over anyway". As he left the station, he barged into Ken and argued with him about his manners, setting off the station alarm to get out of the building. As Okaro returned and suspended Andrea, he told Ken to track Colin down and bring him back in. As Andrea cleared her locker, she convinced Smithy to get the final piece of evidence against Gabriel; a press clipping of the sniper with a photo of Gabriel, revealing the deranged copper was actually David Kent, the real Gabriel's adoptive brother. However, as she went to take it to Smithy, Gabriel caught up with her and found out she knew who he was. Dragging her into a storage room, he confessed to stealing his brother Gabriel's identity to get back at his birth mother, Sergeant June Ackland, for "inflicting" Gabriel on his family. As his confessions continued, she determined he was working hand in hand with the sniper to kill criminals, but she was completely unprepared for the revelation that he was responsible for killing PC Kerry Young, not the sniper.
Meanwhile, PC Reg Hollis waited at a train station for his girlfriend, SRO Marilyn Chambers, who was held up working in the station reception. Reg was planning to propose, but as he called, she said she was held up and would be there soon. As Ken caught up to Colin at a pub, they clashed over Colin's refusal to return to the station, and while Ken called into the station to say he was giving up on arresting Colin, he spotted him driving and went after him. Finding Colin at a garage, Ken tried to arrest Colin and was assaulted with the door of the van, knocking him unconscious. When Ken came to, he found himself in the back of the van, which had been loaded with petrol. Colin set out to drive into the front of Sun Hill to prove his comments about terror attacks were justified, and despite Ken's protests, he refused to back down. Back at the station, Andrea believed she had convinced Gabriel to confess to his crimes, only for them to be interrupted by the sound of the van crashing into the front office. In the front office, Smithy told Marilyn to escort a man out of the building, checking the van and finding Ken handcuffed in the back. Failing to open the door, he tried to get help for Ken, but he told him to leave the reception while he had the chance. As a fire started in the reception, the van exploded, causing a fireball to rip through the front of the building.
The events of the following episode, Inferno (289), saw the station ablaze, with Gabriel unable to rescue Andrea, who had become trapped under a wall frame. Alongside the Sun Hill police officers and detectives, several non-policing emergency services including the fire brigade and ambulance were at the scene of the explosion. After deciding he could prevent being exposed once more, he left her to perish, rescuing Smithy from the front office to appear the hero. As the evacuation of all the police officers, detectives and the two male Asian suspects ensued, Gabriel began to feel guilty and tried to head back for Andrea, and he panicked after Supt. Okaro revealed a woman had been pulled from the building, but he later discovered it was Marilyn. After the evacuation had ended, one of the police cars was stolen by either of the Asian suspects. As Smithy came to in hospital, he told Tony that Ken was in the van, and his body was soon recovered. When Reg returned to Sun Hill, he discovered Marilyn was in hospital. As DI Manson returned to the station, he realised Andrea was missing, and Inspector Gold had the fire officers comb the building for her body. When she was found, Manson was left devastated. At the hospital, Reg proposed to an unconscious Marilyn, but he was left destroyed when she went into cardiac arrest and died. Back at a local community centre where the officers from Sun Hill were, DC Jim Carver discovered his wife, Sergeant June Ackland, was cheating on him with PC Roger Valentine. Jim stormed over to a pub in an attempt to get drunk, but he was talked down by Tony. As June and Roger showed up, Jim savagely attacked Roger before storming off, being pursued by a furious June. As they had a heart to heart, they were disrupted by a fight between a prostitute and her punter. As Jim detained the punter, June ran after the prostitute, and they spoke with their respective arrests. When the arrests were picked up, Jim told June the recent deaths of Ken and his ex-wife Marie, on top of her affair, was reason enough for him to leave London.
Five regular cast members left during the events of the storyline, while three new characters were introduced in the weeks following the events of the station fire.
The D.C. sniper attacks were a series of coordinated shootings that occurred during three weeks in October 2002 throughout the Washington metropolitan area, consisting of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia, and preliminary shootings, that consisted of murders and robberies in several states, and lasted for six months starting in February 2002. Seven people were killed, and seven others were injured in the preliminary shootings, and ten people were killed and three others were critically wounded in the October shootings. In total, the snipers killed 17 people and wounded 10 others in a 10-month span.
"Woodentop" is an episode of the Thames Television series Storyboard, which comprises a series of one-off plays on different themes. The episode was originally broadcast on 16 August 1983. Woodentop became the first ever episode in the long-running British police television series The Bill. The name woodentop is a colloquialism for beat policemen who traditionally wear helmets; the nickname is itself an allusion to the Children's TV series The Woodentops.
"Golden Opportunity" is an episode of the long-running police procedural television series, The Bill, broadcast on 16 April 2002. The episode is significant in the show's history, as it features the events of the first Sun Hill Fire, which resulted in the death of six officers. The episode attracted 8.6 million viewers, and was the first of the few times computer generated imagery had been used on the show. With new producer Paul Marquess wanting to change the cast significantly and the station set due to be redeveloped, the decision was made to stage a dramatic explosion and fire on the set, a storyline that led to the axing of eight characters in total during the events of the storyline.
"Fatal Consequences" is a live episode of the British television drama series The Bill, broadcast on ITV1 on 30 October 2003. The episode marks the 20th anniversary of the pilot episode "Woodentop", and was the first episode of The Bill to be broadcast live. It was written by Tom Needham, directed by Sylvie Boden and produced by Susan Mather and Donna Wiffen.
From the ITV police drama's first screening in 1983, the history of The Bill includes a variety of major plotlines and changes to the programme's format.
Series 19 of British television drama The Bill was broadcast from 1 January until 31 December 2003. The series consisted of 106 episodes, being the longest series broadcast during the show's final decade, and also included the show's first live broadcast, "Fatal Consequences". This series built upon the serialized format previously introduced by new producer Paul Marquess in Series 18, with the series following on from the previous series by removing and replacing a mass number of characters. The most high-profile exit was that of Sergeant Matt Boyden, whose death was part of a crossover with new spin-off series Murder Investigation Team. Actor Tony O'Callaghan, who was with the show for 12 years, became the fourth character with over ten years on the show to have been written out in the 18 months since Marquess took over, with three of those four characters being killed off.
Series 20 of British television drama The Bill was broadcast from 7 January until 30 December 2004, and continued to use the serialized format introduced by Paul Marquess during Series 18.
Series 21 of British television drama The Bill was broadcast from 5 January until 29 December 2005. The series consisted of 106 episodes, making it the series with the highest number of episodes in the show's final decade, tied with series 19. On 5 February 2014, the complete series was released on DVD in Australia as a Region 0, playable anywhere in the world.
The Bill is a British police procedural television series, first broadcast on ITV from 16 October 1984 until 31 August 2010. The programme originated from a one-off drama, Woodentop, broadcast on 16 August 1983.
"Frontline" was a three-part storyline in the long-running police procedural British television series The Bill. Broadcast in 2008, the storyline is significant in the show's history as it was the final plot to feature the death of an on-screen character, PC Emma Keane, which came in the first part of the plot.
The Sun Hill Serial Killer was a major storyline from the ITV police procedural drama The Bill. They were known on screen as the "River Murders", due to the bodies being left on the banks of the River Thames. The storyline spanned several months, from July 2002 to January 2003, with cast regular Cass Rickman, killed off at the denouement in December 2002. It also served as the exit storyline for DC Duncan Lennox, who transferred from Sun Hill Police Station to the Murder Investigation Team during the plot. The storyline concluded with the killer's capture in 2003 after they kidnapped Acting DI Samantha Nixon. It was the first of several serial killer storylines in the show.
"The Last Recruit" is the 13th television episode of the American Broadcasting Company's sixth season of the serial drama television series Lost and 116th episode overall. The episode was aired on April 20, 2010, on ABC in the United States. The episode was written by producer Paul Zbyszewski and story editor Graham Roland and directed by editor Stephen Semel. Although the episode is not specifically centered on someone, Jack Shephard, Sun-Hwa Kwon, Claire Littleton, Jin-Soo Kwon, John Locke, Sayid Jarrah and James "Sawyer" Ford have points of view in the flash-sideways universe.
"Respect" is the two-part series finale of the United Kingdom's longest-running police procedural television drama series, The Bill. The final two episodes were written by David Harsent and directed by Reza Moradi, and aired on ITV1 on 24 August and 31 August 2010. The series finale, and the final scene, were specially written to include all 17 current cast members.
"The Anniversary, Part Two" is an episode of the long-running ITV police-procedural drama series The Bill. The episode is significant in the show's history as it is the second of two episodes broadcast live. The Anniversary, Part 2 was broadcast live on 22 September 2005 at 8:00pm, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of ITV1. The episode was written by Graham Mitchell, directed and co-produced by Sylvie Boden, and produced by Donna Wiffen.
The Game is a British Cold War spy thriller television serial set in London in 1972. The six-part series was created by Toby Whithouse, written by Whithouse, Sarah Dollard and Debbie O'Malley, and first broadcast on BBC America in 2014.
Cameron Tait is a fictional character from the British police procedural television series The Bill, played by Daniel MacPherson. He first appeared in the eighteenth series episode "Thinking Out Loud", broadcast on 30 January 2003. Cameron was introduced as a police constable from Sydney, Australia, who joins the Metropolitan Police based at the Sun Hill station in London. MacPherson was approached by the show's producers about the role, after they saw him in a production of Godspell. He was hesitant about accepting as he did not intend to stay in the UK for long, and he was not sure the role was right for him. However, he was convinced by the changes brought in by Paul Marquess and the strong ratings the show was achieving in the UK and Australia. MacPherson was contracted for 18 months and he began filming in September 2002. With Cameron being the first Australian police officer to appear in The Bill, MacPherson worked with the scriptwriters to make him more a realistic Australian and said that he had to remove some stereotypical Australian words from his dialogue. To help him prepare for the role, MacPherson went on a ride-along with the Bondi police, and he also shaved his head.
Kerry Young is a fictional character from the British police procedural television series The Bill, played by Beth Cordingly. She first appeared in the eighteenth series episode "Too Close to the Wind", broadcast on 11 July 2002. Kerry was introduced as a police constable, who joins the Metropolitan Police based at the Sun Hill station. Cordingly's casting and Kerry's creation occurred after a large number of characters were written out by the show's new executive producer Paul Marquess. Ahead of her audition, Cordingly worried that she might be typecast as a bitch because of her past roles. However, Marquess met with all the new actors and wrote their characters around them, and Cordingly was relieved when Kerry's biography was full of "nice stuff". To prepare for the role, Cordingly spent time with the Met to learn about their daily routine and joined them for a day out in a squad car, which she admitted left her with motion sickness.