The Vice

The Vice was a British crime drama that ran between 1999-2003 which centred around London's Vice Unit run by DI Pat Chappel (Ken Stott). The Vice Unit was small, underfunded and generally treated with derision by other forces, while Pat Chappel and his team of young detectives struggled to get a result, largely against the odds. Pat Chappel himself was a conflicted character, whose compassion for the people he worked with daily often led him to become emotionally involved in the cases, quite often with devastating results. Ken Stott left the series in 2003, his role was take over by his former second-in-command Sgt Joe Robinson


 * Arch Enemy: DS Frank Vickers.
 * Good People Have Good Sex: Subverted by PC Dougie Raymond who, despite being a decent character, is shown to have his sexual tastes corrupted by the constant exposure to pornography and ends up trying to get his girlfriend to take part in kinky sex acts.
 * Hannibal Lecture: Vickers delivers one of these to Pat Chappel when . "I've got to hand it you. I would have just used some tom, but you Pat, you used the woman you love".
 * Pyrrhic Victory: The end results of most episodes that weren't downright failures. If the team managed to get a conviction, it was often only at the expense of losing a greater target, suffering the loss of a team member or playing extremely fast and lose with police procedures.
 * Red Light District: The setting for most of the series.
 * Wham! Episode: The start of series 5 'Hooked'. PC Sheryl Hutchins goes undercover