Taggart

"There's been a murder."

A long-running British detective series, running from 1983 to 2011 (ITV have withdrawn their funding and until/unless STV can get a replacement backer, we have to call this show cancelled)

Set in Glasgow, Scotland, it has a very bad case of Never One Murder. The series was named after its main character, Jim Taggart, who is no longer in the series due to the death of Mark McManus, who portrayed him. Rather surprisingly, the show has carried on longer without him than it did when he was alive.

According to The Other Wiki, the show is frequently summed up by saying "murder" in a very strong Glaswegian accent (e.g. a parody in The Fast Show consisted entirely of policemen standing around a corpse and saying "He's deeed, he's bin mudded!").

Not to be confused with Dagny or James Taggart.


 * Artifact Title: Jim Taggart no longer appears in the show, due to actor Mark McManus's death.
 * Ascended Extra: James McPherson had a brief appearance as a young DC in 'The Killing Philosophy', before becoming Taggart's assistant for the rest of the Mark McManus episodes. After Mark McManus died, Mike Jardine got promoted to DCI and became the main character for the next few years.
 * Autopsy Snack Time: One of the coroners tends to do this.
 * Beam Me Up, Scotty: There's been a murder., funnily enough.
 * Beneath Suspicion
 * Bonnie Scotland
 * British Brevity: 100 episodes in 25 years. Taggart episodes are kind of like buses. Buses that are twice as long as normal shows, mind. A single 'episode' was normally 2-4 hours in the days before it was serialised down to an hour.
 * The Character Died With Him: Mark McManus, as noted above.
 * Detective Drama
 * Exposition Victim: in "Forbidden Fruit"
 * Fable Remake: The episode 'Gingerbread' was a modern retelling of 'Hansel and Gretel'
 * Thematic Theme Tune: "No Mean City".
 * Never One Murder
 * Suspiciously Similar Substitute
 * Violent Glaswegian: Only often more calculating than usual.