Byte-Sized Overview
Target is a hard-charging BBC police drama from the late 1970s, set in Southampton and built around the 13th Regional Crime Squad. At the centre is Detective Superintendent Steve Hackett, a blunt, driven copper whose methods are not exactly approved by the finishing school for delicate procedure. He works with a squad that includes the more measured Detective Chief Superintendent Tate, the steady Detective Sergeant Louise Colbert, the rugged Detective Sergeant Frank Bonney and Detective Constable Dukes, all of them thrown into robberies, kidnappings, armed hold-ups and the sort of organised crime cases that make paperwork look almost comforting.
What makes the series worth a look is the combination of film-shot grit, coastal industrial locations and a genuinely nasty edge. This is not a cosy procedural where the tea gets brewed before the credits roll. It is closer to a bruising, post-The Sweeney attempt to bottle the era’s appetite for police drama with teeth, and it is often at its most interesting when it is trying to balance that swagger with character tension and the moral cost of getting the job done.
Transmission Details
- Show Title: Target
- Years: 1977-1978
- Created By: Ted Willis
- Network: BBC One
- Seasons: 2
- Episodes: 17
- Starring: Patrick Mower, Philip Madoc, Brendan Price, Vivien Heilbron
- Supporting Cast: Carl Rigg, Ania Marson, Tony Osoba, Brian Cox
- Genres: Crime, Drama, Action
- Status: Ended
Signal Strength
Target works best when it commits to its own unpleasantness. The series understands that police drama does not need to be polite to be engaging, and it gives Patrick Mower a lead role that thrives on friction. Steve Hackett is not a cuddly professional with a secret soft centre. He is abrupt, self-assured and frequently hard to like, which is exactly why the character has a pulse. Mower plays him with clipped confidence and a faintly predatory swagger, so even routine scenes can feel as if they might tip into confrontation.
The ensemble is another strength. Philip Madoc gives Tate a colder, more considered authority, which creates a useful counterweight to Hackett’s bulldozer energy. Vivien Heilbron brings intelligence and composure to Louise Colbert, helping the squad feel less like a testosterone parade with badges. Brendan Price gives Frank Bonney a rough-edged practicality, while Carl Rigg’s Dukes adds a working-team texture that keeps the group from becoming a collection of interchangeable tough blokes in shiny cars.
Where the series sometimes loses momentum is in its reliance on the era’s favourite shortcut, which is to equate intensity with constant aggression. The writing can be very effective in short bursts, but some stories feel as if they are trying too hard to outgrow their own thinly sketched criminals. When the cases are built around hostage-taking, robbery or organised violence, the drama sings. When the scripts pause to underline how hard and uncompromising everyone is, the result can feel a touch self-satisfied. It is a show that occasionally admires its own bruises.
Vibe Check
This is a brisk, muscular watch with a low tolerance for niceties. The pace is generally propulsive, the tone is bleakly masculine and the atmosphere is all rain-slick streets, docks, estates and institutional rooms that seem to have been designed by people with no fondness for joy. It has the feeling of a drama that wants you to smell the cigarette smoke through the screen.
If you enjoy 1970s British cop shows with a harder stare than later, more polished procedurals, Target should land well. If you prefer your crime fiction to come with wit, warmth or a central character who remembers the concept of charm, it may be a harder sell. The series is at its best for viewers who like their action dramas slightly grubby, a bit severe and firmly committed to the idea that the police are just as complicated and compromised as the people they are chasing.
Spoiler Mode
Target spends its two series establishing a world where violence is not an exception but a working condition. The early run sets out the squad’s remit clearly enough: Hackett and his team are pulled into major crimes that range from robberies to kidnaps, with the police often arriving after the worst choices have already been made. That structure gives the series a useful engine, because each case is less about neat detection than about how far the squad will go once pressure starts rising. Hackett’s impatience, Tate’s caution and the practical instincts of the rest of the team create recurring tension inside the unit, not just against the criminals.
The first series is the rawer of the two. It leans harder into shock, and the show’s reputation for excessive violence comes from the way it presents armed threats, beatings and stand-offs as part of the everyday furniture of the job. That is not merely decorative nastiness. It shapes how the characters behave, because Hackett increasingly looks like a man who believes speed and force are the only language that matters. The downside is that this approach can flatten some of the supporting antagonists into functions of the plot rather than fully realised adversaries. The upside is that the episodes often feel dangerous in a way many police dramas only pretend to be.
The second series moderates that edge somewhat, but it does not become soft. Instead, it leans more on the strain inside the team and the consequences of pursuing cases too aggressively. Tate’s presence matters more as a stabilising force, and Louise Colbert becomes even more important as someone who can read a situation without immediately turning it into a contest of nerve. That shift gives the series more texture than a pure hard-man showcase. It also reveals a central truth about the show: Hackett is effective, but he is not exactly a model for sustainable management, either professionally or emotionally.
By the end of the released run, Target does not reinvent itself, but it does settle into a slightly more measured rhythm. The final stretch leaves the core idea intact: this is a crime squad drama defined by pressure, compromise and men who would rather break a door than have a conversation. There is no grand thematic conversion or neat moral reckoning. The series closes as it lived, with a bruised professionalism that feels fitting for a show more interested in force than comfort.
Character Shout-Outs
Steve Hackett, played by Patrick Mower: Hackett is the engine, the provocation and sometimes the problem. Mower gives him a relentless physical presence, making the character feel like a man who has already decided the argument before anyone else has opened their mouth. The performance works because it never asks for forgiveness. Hackett is abrasive, driven and unglamorous in the right ways, and Mower keeps him watchable even when the writing pushes him towards self-parody.
Tate, played by Philip Madoc: Tate is the show’s most valuable counterweight, bringing thoughtfulness and a drier authority to the squad. Madoc plays him with a controlled, watchful intelligence that suggests a man who has seen enough to know that fury is not the same as effectiveness. He helps the series feel organised rather than merely noisy, and his scenes with Hackett often sharpen both men by contrast.
Louise Colbert, played by Vivien Heilbron: Colbert is crucial because she prevents the squad from becoming an all-male wall of bluster. Heilbron gives her presence, competence and a calmness that reads as strength rather than passivity. The performance adds intelligence to scenes that might otherwise just be about shouting, and it quietly underlines how much better the team functions when someone is not trying to win every room by sheer volume.
Frank Bonney, played by Brendan Price: Bonney supplies a rougher, more working-class texture to the team, and Price makes him feel grounded without turning him into comic relief. He helps the series live in the details of police routine and camaraderie, which is useful in a drama this keen on velocity. Bonney’s value is that he makes the squad feel like a unit, not just a collection of lead-character ego.
Dukes, played by Carl Rigg: Dukes is one of the show’s quieter assets, a character who adds day-to-day credibility to the squad’s operations. Rigg’s performance is more understated than some of the surrounding work, which suits the role nicely. He helps sell the procedural side of the series and gives the police team another texture beyond Hackett’s blunt-force charisma.
Deep Dive Highlights
Target matters partly because of how it was made. The series was shot entirely on film, which gave it a more cinematic look than the usual BBC studio-and-film hybrid of the period. That choice suits the material. The action is not trapped inside brightly lit interiors, but pushed out into streets, docks and industrial spaces that give the drama a harder, more modern feel. Southampton is not treated as a postcard location but as a working environment, and that matters for the show’s identity. The city’s scale, traffic and waterside geography help sell the sense of a police unit operating in a real, physically legible world.
The series also has an interesting industrial pedigree. It was the BBC’s answer to the success of The Sweeney, and that ambition is visible in almost every frame. The comparison is both flattering and limiting. Target clearly wants the same rough authority, the same sense that police work is messy and violent, but it does not always possess the same tonal elasticity. It often feels more severe, less amused by its own world. That makes it distinctive, even when it weakens some scenes by draining out the wit.
There is also a notable behind-the-scenes continuity in the creative personnel, with Philip Hinchcliffe associated with the production and a general emphasis on filmic toughness over studio-bound convention. The result is a series that looks and feels more expensive than many contemporary BBC dramas, even when the stories themselves are built around familiar police template elements. In a crowded decade for British crime television, that visual seriousness helped Target stand apart, even if its reputation for brutality sometimes overshadowed its craft.
Legacy & Impact
Target occupies an interesting place in British television history. It was clearly made to compete in the tougher end of 1970s police drama, and it earned a reputation for violence that shaped how it was remembered. The series was not a long-running institution, but it became a cult item precisely because it was fierce, slightly awkward and not widely repeated for years. That scarcity helped freeze its image as a rough-edged curiosity from a very specific moment in BBC drama.
Its influence is more atmospheric than direct. The show sits among the titles that helped define the hard-policing vogue of the era, alongside better-known contemporaries, and it shows how far BBC drama was willing to push in pursuit of a modern, street-level tone. It may not have become a major award magnet or a lasting mainstream touchstone, but it is still useful as evidence of how British television tried to toughen up crime drama in the late 1970s. For viewers interested in the period, that alone makes it worth rediscovering.
Skull Face’s Take
Target is for viewers who like their 1970s police drama mean, brisk and only occasionally bothered by subtlety. It has a strong lead, a properly sturdy supporting cast and enough film-shot grit to make the Southampton setting feel alive. What may put people off is the blunt-force attitude, the uneven writing and the fact that it sometimes mistakes severity for depth. Still, if you want a tough old BBC cop show with bite, this one earns its stripes.
Skull Face's Score
Skull Face's independent editorial rating
A hard-edged 1970s police drama with real atmosphere and a strong central turn.
What works
- Film-shot grit and strong location work
- Patrick Mower and Philip Madoc give the series backbone
- The ensemble gives the squad real texture
What may not
- Some scripts lean too heavily on brute force for tension
- The tone can feel self-satisfied and thin on humour
- Supporting criminals are sometimes less vivid than the style around them