''Second Verdict'' is a six-part

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

television series from 1976. It combines the genres of

police procedural The police procedural, police show, or police crime drama is a subgenre of procedural drama and detective fiction that emphasises the investigative procedure of police officers, police detectives, or law enforcement agency, law enforcement agencies ...

and

docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television show, television and feature film, film, which features Drama (film and television), dramatized Historical reenactment, re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of docu ...

, with dramatised documentaries in which classic criminal cases and unsolved crimes from history were re-appraised by fictional police officers. In ''Second Verdict'',

Stratford Johns Alan Edgar Stratford Johnson (22 September 1925 – 29 January 2002), known as Stratford Johns, was a British stage, film and television actor known for playing the role of senior CID officer Charlie Barlow, a character he originated in the lo ...

and

Frank Windsor Frank Windsor Higgins (12 July 1928 – 30 September 2020), known professionally as Frank Windsor, was an English actor, primarily known for his roles on television, especially policeman John Watt in ''Z-Cars'' and its spin-offs. Early life Wi ...

reprised for a final time their double-act as Detective Chief Superintendents Barlow and Watt, hugely popular with TV audiences from the long-running series ''

Z-Cars ''Z-Cars'' or ''Z Cars'' (pronounced "zed cars") is a British television police procedural series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police and CID detectives in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, near Liverpool. Produced by ...

'', '' Softly, Softly'' and '' Barlow at Large''. ''Second Verdict'' built on the formula of their 1973 series ''

Jack the Ripper Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer who was active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer was also ...

'' in which dramatised documentary was drawn together with a discussion between the two police officers which formed the narrative. ''Second Verdict'' also allowed for some location filming and, when the case being re-appraised was within living memory, interviews with real witnesses. The episodes were: * "The

Lindbergh Kidnapping On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. (born June 22, 1930), the 20-month-old son of Col. Charles Lindbergh and his wife, aviator and author Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was murdered after being abducted from his crib in the upper floor of t ...

" (27 May 1976) * "Who Killed the

Princes in the Tower The Princes in the Tower refers to the mystery of the fate of the deposed King Edward V of England and his younger brother Prince Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, heirs to the throne of King Edward IV of England. The brothers were the only ...

?" (3 June 1976) * "The French Bluebeard" (10 June 1976) * " Murder on the 10.27" (17 June 1976) * "

Lizzie Borden Lizzie Andrew Borden (July 19, 1860 – June 1, 1927) was an American woman who was Trial, tried and Acquittal, acquitted of the August 4, 1892 axe murders of her Patricide, father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts. No one else was c ...

" (24 June 1976) * "Who Burned the Reichstag?" (1 July 1976). In 2015 BBC's Genome Blog described ''Second Verdict'' as "An odd and jarring mixture of drama and documentary" which "never really excited much interest". Although this was the last time Barlow and Watt would be seen together on British TV (and the last time Barlow would be seen at all), the Watt character would appear again later in the year in the final series of Softly, Softly: Task Force and then make one final appearance in the last episode of ''

'' in September 1978.

Cast

- (DCS Charlie Barlow) *

- (DCS John Watt)

Footnotes

External links

* {{Z-Cars 1976 British television series debuts 1976 British television series endings 1970s British police procedural television series 1970s British television miniseries BBC television docudramas British English-language television shows British television spinoffs

Cast

See also

Footnotes

External links