# The Thin Blue Line (1995)

> A British police station sitcom starring Rowan Atkinson that satirises policing with broad farce and innuendo.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/2182

## Facts

- Seasons: 2
- Episodes: 14
- Episode runtime: 29 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: comedy
- Created by: Ben Elton
- Network: BBC One
- Cast: Rowan Atkinson, Serena Evans, David Haig, James Dreyfus, Mina Anwar, Rudolph Walker, Mark Addy, Kevin Allen
- TMDB rating: 7.5/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112194/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: mild
- Complexity: simple
- Violence: none
- Tone: camp, satirical, cheeky, breezy, farcical

## What critics say

Audiences rate the two series positively, with the second season rated higher, for its sharp satire and comic performances.

## Synopsis

The Thin Blue Line (1995-1996) is a British sitcom created by Ben Elton for BBC One. Rowan Atkinson stars as Inspector Raymond Fowler, a bumbling commander running a provincial police station, alongside Serena Evans as Sergeant Patricia Dawkins and David Haig as Detective Inspector Derek Grim. Constables Kevin Goody (James Dreyfus) and Maggie Habib (Mina Anwar) round out the squad. The engine of the show is the gap between the station's self-importance and its incompetence: schemes, rivalries and petty ambitions collapse inside a single police station, and each episode is built from a case-of-the-week that the officers mangle with escalating farce. The format is a short, two-season run of fourteen episodes, a compact workplace comedy with the feel of a stage farce. Its tone is cheeky, camp and knowing, with double entendres and direct address to the audience that puncture the procedural conventions of television crime drama. Fans of Blackadder, The Office and Brooklyn Nine-Nine will find resonance in its satire of institutional self-regard and its ensemble of incompetent authority figures.

## Shows like The Thin Blue Line

- [Scott & Bailey (2011)](https://ember.film/tv/36323)
- [The Brittas Empire (1991)](https://ember.film/tv/227)
- [A Bit of Fry & Laurie (1989)](https://ember.film/tv/176)
- [No Offence (2015)](https://ember.film/tv/55662)
- [The Bill (1984)](https://ember.film/tv/1963)
- [Blackadder (1983)](https://ember.film/tv/6746)
- [Yes Minister (1980)](https://ember.film/tv/4328)
- [Yes, Prime Minister (1986)](https://ember.film/tv/11746)
- [W1A (2014)](https://ember.film/tv/55542)
- [The Responder (2022)](https://ember.film/tv/117829)

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