The BEST episodes of The Bill
Every episode of The Bill ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Bill!
The Bill follows the officers of Sun Hill, a Metropolitan Police station located in the fictional Borough of Canley in London's East End. Created in 1983 by Geoff McQueen as a one-off drama called "Woodentop", The Bill was spun off as a full series, and ran for over 26 years and 2,425 episodes. Covering both uniformed officers and CID detectives, the series is renowned for its accurate and authentic portrayal of policing in London.
#1 - Death or Glory
Season 23 - Episode 51 - Aired 7/19/2007
Heaton briefs the team on the Skens' plan to ambush a cash van, but Lewis alerts them to a last-minute change of plan – the stolen explosives are to be used to rescue gang leader Wayne Jackson from a prison vehicle on the courthouse run. A high-speed car chase through the London streets ensues, observed from the air by Jack until the getaway car enters a tunnel. The trail goes cold, leaving Lewis in the hands of the increasingly suspicious gangsters.
Watch Now:Amazon#3 - Return of the Hunter
Season 17 - Episode 25 - Aired 4/6/2001
Sgt. Cryer and PC Hayward attend an incident at a local school where an angry divorcee, Chris Finnessey, is demanding to see his son. When the boy's teacher warns the police of Finnessey's violent reputation and a possible restraining order against him, he grabs a Stanley knife and takes the teacher and Sgt. Cryer hostage. Faced with an armed suspect and two hostages, Supt. Chandler calls in SO19, although the only Trojan unit available is that of the newly-qualified PC Smith and PC Stanley. When Finnessey and his son leave the school building, Chandler gives authorisation to fire. Smith shoots first but to his horror, accidentally hits Cryer. Stanley takes down Finnessey. Cryer survives the shooting, but his career in the police is over.
#4 - Don't Like Mondays
Season 5 - Episode 59 - Aired 7/25/1989
PC Edwards and PC Smith are called to a disturbance at a local bank, where they are surprised to find Tosh Lines' wife and children causing a commotion as there is no money left in their account. Edwards makes a discrete call to Sgt. Peters, who suggests to Tosh that he head down to the bank and sort things out. As PC Ramsey and WPC Ackland also arrive, the bank is raided by an armed gang. Tosh Lines arrives and charges towards the bank, but as PC Ramsey runs to stop him, he is shot in the chest by one of the robbers. Ch. Insp. Conway negotiates with the gang as armed PT17 officers surround the building. Sgt. Cryer offers to drive the getaway car, but disconnects the ignition when he leaves it at the bank entrance. PC Smith and the other hostages are released, but PC Edwards is taken hostage. He manages to makes a run for it and the PT17 officers open fire on the car.
#5 - Zain: Inside Out - Part II
Season 23 - Episode 90 - Aired 12/20/2007
Zain gets a frosty reception at the station when Heaton secures his release from prison to help Meadows with the recapture of escaped killer Jason Forbes, and Will can't help taking a swing at the man who callously disposed of Honey's body in a bid to save his own skin. Unsurprisingly, Zain encounters hostility from several of his former colleagues. The pursuit leads to a gunpoint showdown, giving Zain a clear choice between escape and doing the right thing.
Watch Now:Amazon#6 - Trail of Blood
Season 23 - Episode 53 - Aired 7/26/2007
CID officers attend the funeral of murdered supermodel Cindy Statham, only to learn that killer Larry Franks has been transferred to hospital following a suicide bid. When he makes a break for freedom, a frantic search of the building ensues and Beth is first to pick up the trail of blood. Smithy's first day as Acting Inspector goes from bad to worse when he calls in the Firearms Command to sort out a building society robbery by two bungling ex-employees.
Watch Now:Amazon#7 - End of the Affair
Season 23 - Episode 25 - Aired 4/11/2007
Gold finds herself caught in an awkward situation when Peter Harris' wife Mary turns up at the station with a ransom note – claiming that Peter has been kidnapped. Forced to reveal her night of passion to Manson, suspicion immediately falls on another of Peter's lovers, who arrives the scene of the planned drop to collect the ransom money. However, Manson soon realises that the team have been duped, and it's not long before Gold realises who the kidnapper really is. Meanwhile, a youth is badly assaulted on the Larkmead estate, and with a little help from his flatmate's brother, Hardy and Valentine investigate a local youth club owner who they suspect may be responsible for dealing drugs.
Watch Now:Amazon#8 - Zain: Panic - Part 5 of 6
Season 23 - Episode 10 - Aired 2/1/2007
Gina reports Honey as a missing person when she fails to report for work, and it's not long before her fingerprints are found at Bonham Wharf, identifying her as the second prisoner at the scene. Zain panics as the net closes on him, but Kristen remains calm and reassures him they can make a clean getaway. Heaton's wife tells him they are through, and Emma finds out just how controlling her new husband, Matt, can be after the pair have a bitter row.
Watch Now:Amazon#10 - Sun Hill Karma
Season 3 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/16/1987
Martella applies for a position in the Bermuda police force, but after being punched during a fight, and failing to prevent a suicide jumper, she feels she is not up to the job and withdraws her application. Roach investigates a fight at a hostel for drunks. Patel investigates another racial attack. During followup, Carver is worried about himself not liking Asians. Penny has started yoga and thinks everyone else should do it too.
#11 - Brownie Points
Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/5/1987
The Deputy Assistant Commissioner visits the station at the same time as a brownie pack. The "Tom Squad" is conducting a crackdown on prostitution in Sun Hill, and D.S. Roach reluctantly meets with some social workers about a girl being abused by her mother.
#12 - Hostage
Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 12/9/1985
Sgt. Cryer is taking half the relief out on Sun Hill's annual fishing trip. PC Smith and DC Dashwood go to serve a warrant on Russell Archer over a non-appearance in court on a poaching charge. Archer manages to escape from Dashwood and Smith, and is later seen menacing a milkman with a sawn-off shotgun. He later holds up a bookies and a greengrocer, until he is spotted by PC Carver and PC Frank. who give chase. Frank is shot and wounded during the chase, and Archer ends up taking an elderly woman hostage in a retirement village. With the fishing trip cancelled, DS Roach takes charge of the siege operation until DI Galloway and Ch. Supt. Brownlow arrive. Attempts to contact the increasingly unstable Archer fail, until he asks to speak to Sgt. Cryer whom he saw in the betting shop. Cryer enters the flat, and attempts to talk Archer into giving himself up. With WPC Ackland posing as a Meals-on-Wheels driver, Galloway, Roach and PT17 officers storm the flat and shoot Archer.
#13 - The Short Straw
Season 9 - Episode 36 - Aired 3/26/1993
When her car breaks down on the way to the station, DC Viv Martella misses an important CID briefing about an obbo on a suspected armed robbery, and is furious when she is taken off the case by DI Frank Burnside. As CID and SO19 wait outside the target, Martella and PC Tony Stamp follow up a simple case to arrest a suspected bag snatcher. As they wait outside the suspect's house, a van pulls up, obscuring their view. Having missed the briefing, Martella fails to recognise the van's occupants as the armed robbers, and when she approaches their van she is shot and killed. Stamp is wounded, but manages to give a description of the van which is spotted by a traffic police motorcycle. As the India 99 police helicopter and SO19 cars pursue Martella's killers across London, PC Loxton and WPC Ackland disobey Ch. Insp. Cato's orders and pursue the suspect vehicle in the Area Car. The vehicle hits a bulldozer and explodes, killing all inside.
#14 - Blind Alleys, Clogged Roads
Season 3 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/2/1987
D.S. Roach theorises a mysterious drowning is the work of the British secret service. D.I. Galloway hits a black cab and arrests the driver, causing half the cabbies in London to blockade the station.
#15 - Light Duties
Season 4 - Episode 1 - Aired 7/19/1988
Recently promoted to CID, D.C. Carver is feeling seasick while he and D.S. Roach work on a case on the police launch. The River Police fish the body of a murdered informant out of the Thames, but Roach is furious when the case is taken over by two detectives from Scotland Yard. P.C. Taffy Edwards and Stamp attend an incident with an unconcious elderly man who has a very protective dog. A woman offers to help, but Stamp tells her to move along. Stamp is horrified when the woman arrives at Sun Hill as the new uniformed Inspector, Christine Frazer. P.C. Hollis is running a sweep on who D.I. Galloway's replacement will be - there are rumours it will be D.I. Burnside. At the hospital, a solid gold krugerand is found on the old man, and W.P.C. Ackland and D.C. Carver realise the body in the river is the old man's nephew, who was grassing on his accomplices in a krugerand robbery. Sgt. Penny is back at work on light duties, but he is clearly still deeply affected by his recent shooting.
#16 - Requiem
Season 4 - Episode 14 - Aired 9/1/1988
P.C. Ramsey and P.C. Haynes attend a flat where the occupants have discovered a decayed skeleton in the wall where they were going to build a fireplace. Sgt. Cryer, D.S. Roach and D.C. Dashwood are called in, and a forensic expert soon arrives to examine the body. What looks like a baby's body is also found, but it turns out to be a doll. While CID search for former occupants and interview the Trants' obnoxious neighbours, a note is found in the wall from a merchant sailor who couldn't afford a funeral, so he put his dead wife's body in the wall.
#17 - Runaround
Season 4 - Episode 17 - Aired 9/13/1988
Viv has hay fever and tries to get medication but is called to a café with a dead body and is man-handled by the deceased's son. Yorkie visits a lady with agrophobia who thinks her neighbour is being burgled. He gets on their truck and helps June and Haynes arrest them. Haynes and Ackland run into a drunken driver in a bus garage using a sledge hammer to break windows.
#18 - They Say We're Rough
Season 4 - Episode 23 - Aired 10/4/1988
Viv and Ken go to an army surplus store that seems to be being supplied off the back of a lorry. Van used to deliver the gear was nicked from Yorkshire. 2 redcaps (who don't think much of police) turn up to collect squaddies. Cryer doesn't think they are kosher. Cryer wants someone for a p.a. job at local school and asks Ken to buy a flying jacket. An ice-cream van and a car cause a traffic snarl-up near the station. Roach sends a traffic warden to sort it out. Hollis is also sent out to deal with it. After walking around the block, Hollis comes back to find part of a funeral has now joined the bigger traffic jam.
#19 - Ringer
Season 2 - Episode 7 - Aired 1/6/1986
There is a serious road crash involving a Porsche, a motorcycle, a coach, a lorry and a Cortina resulting in six deaths. The Porsche had been tampered with prior to the accident and turns out to have been made of three different cars. Brownlow sets up a temporary morgue at a local school; WPC Martella and PC Muswell have the job of informing relatives of the deaths. After following the trail from the Porsche, DI Galloway raids a scrapyard only to find DS Burnside from the robbery squad undercover as a buyer, about to break the ring, but having forgotten to tell Galloway.
#20 - Loan Shark
Season 2 - Episode 9 - Aired 1/20/1986
A young mother caught shoplifting at a supermarket confesses to Sgt Cryer that she is in debt to local loan shark 'Aunty' Peg Miller. PC Edwards checks cases of fly tipping (unauthorised dumping of rubble) in the area and discovers some disaffected Welsh miners may be responsible. A Mrs Taylor makes a complaint about a noisy neighbour, but when WPC Ackland investigates, she finds the neighbour dead.
#21 - Man of the People
Season 8 - Episode 42 - Aired 5/26/1992
P.C. Stringer wins the election for the post of Federation Rep, beating the incumbent P.C. Hollis by fifty-eight votes to two. Ch. Supt. Brownlow decides to eat in the canteen with the other ranks, much to their discomfort. Stringer's first job as Fed Rep is to persuade him to stop.
#22 - A Little Knowledge
Season 5 - Episode 68 - Aired 8/24/1989
Lines sits in on a poker game at a mini cab office. Illegal gambling is suspected. They raid the wrong place. Cathy moans to Taffy about putting the cards back. she is set up by Carver and Lines. She later gets her own back. Garfield is decoy for muggings on pizza delivery boys.
#23 - Repercussions (2)
Season 5 - Episode 15 - Aired 2/21/1989
Because of a screwup, Burnside has put back community relations 30 years. Conway yells at Burnside before burnside goes to see Brownlow. Conway then goes to see Cryer who tells him what he thought the situation was. Yorkie is accused of making racist remarks while arresting one of the girls but Ramsey is the real culprit. The headmaster of the school comes to talk to Brownlow.
#24 - With Friends Like That...?
Season 2 - Episode 10 - Aired 1/27/1986
Sgt. Cryer brings in an assault victim who is reluctant to report a rape. Jane has problems interviewing the rape victim (Debbie) because of her friend's (Sandra) constant interference. Sandra then tells Muswell that Debbie got what she deserved from Sandra's boyfriend Roach investigates a burglary with the householder claiming more jewelry was taken than was recovered. The burglars are denying they took the extra stuff
#25 - The Chief Super's Party
Season 2 - Episode 12 - Aired 2/10/1986
P.C. Muswell and P.C. Lyttleton are on the lookout for a lorry full of stolen woolen coats. Ch. Supt. Brownlow is throwing a farewell party for his retiring clerk. D.I. Roy Galloway questions D.S. Burnside when he gatecrashes the party, and Burnside admits that he fancies June Ackland. D.C. Mike Dashwood realises the scotch being poured at the bar has been stolen, and Galloway asks Ackland to keep the remaining bottles aside as evidence. Despite warnings from the D.I. and the Chief Super, D.S. Ted Roach drives home extremely drunk and crashes his car into a fence. Knowing he'll be sacked if he's found out, Roach sleeps on a friend's boat overnight while he sobers up, but spots the coat thieves on the docks when he awakens, and the men are arrested when they are found stuck in a freezer. Roach also sweet-talks the man whose garden he crashed into by offering to get him into the Special Constabulary. P.C. Reg Hollis grasses on Roach to Brownlow, in the hope of getting the clerk's job.