Z-Cars

Z-Cars was a British television series featuring police.

Keith Perry was an avid viewer of Z-Cars. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks)

Christine Summerfield speculated that the desk sergeant who filed her case had joined the police force because he'd seen Z-Cars as a teenager and thought it would be exciting. (PROSE: Dead Romance)

Z-Cars was among the 20th century Earth television shows broadcast by Reef Station One in the New Earth Republic during the 101st century. (PROSE: Synthespians™)

Behind the scenes

Z-Cars was broadcast on the BBC from 1962 to 1978. It centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown.

In 1965, it was hoped by the production team of The Daleks' Master Plan that they could use the Z-Cars set and some of the regular cast for the scenes of "The Feast of Steven" set in a police station. However, David Rose, the producer of Z-Cars, withheld his permission for this. (REF: The First Doctor Handbook) This was alluded to in the novelisation of this episode, in which the policemen (unnamed in the televised story) were given the names of some of the Z-Cars regular cast. (This would've been Doctor Who's first crossover with another series or franchise. The first actual crossover was in Remembrance of the Daleks with its allusion to Bernard Quatermass.)

Elisabeth Sladen had two different roles in the series shortly before she was cast as Sarah Jane Smith. While looking for an actress to play Sarah Jane, Doctor Who producer Barry Letts spoke with Z-Cars producer Ron Craddock, who, having been impressed by Sladen's performances, recommended her for the role. (DCOM: Beginning the End).

As with Doctor Who, many episodes of Z-Cars were wiped from the records by the BBC once they were believed no longer useful. During the search for missing episodes of Who, several Z-Cars episodes were also found. (DOC: The Missing Years)

A number of Doctor Who actors also appeared in the series, including Carole Ann Ford and David Warner.