All 27 seasons of the iconic Scottish police drama Taggart, hailed as the best British TV detective series ever, are now available to stream on Channel 5. The gritty detective drama, which aired from 1983 until 2010, has been climbing the charts since its arrival on the streaming service.
A Glasgow Crime Classic Returns
The programme, created by Glenn Chandler, originally aired on ITV and followed a group of detectives based in the Maryhill CID of Strathclyde Police as they solved gritty crimes around Glasgow. Due to its long-standing tenure, the show gathered many fans over the years who were left devastated when the series aired its last episode over 16 years ago.
Fans can now indulge in a spot of nostalgia and rewatch the episodes, which were packed with complex whodunnits and a stellar Scottish cast. It even had a very famous catchphrase spoken by its cynical but loveable protagonist, which is still uttered to this day.
The Legacy of DCI Jim Taggart
The police drama originally ran as the mini series Killer in September 1983 before it was commissioned as a full series and renamed after its lead character, DCI Jim Taggart. Taggart was played by the late Mark McManus, who coined one of the most recognisable taglines in TV history: “There’s been a murder…”
When McManus passed away in 1994, the series continued under the same name and went on to become one of the UK's longest-running television dramas. Taggart saw several replacement leading detectives in its time, with actor James MacPherson succeeding McManus as DCI Michael Jardine. When MacPherson left the series in 2002, Alex Norton joined the show as DCI Matt Burke to lead the team.
Guest Stars and Fan Praise
Over the years, the show also welcomed a host of notable guest stars, including several at the start of their careers, such as Robert Carlyle, Richard Madden, Dougray Scott, Jason Isaacs, Phyllis Logan, and Billy Boyd.
On a recently posted Reddit thread, Taggart viewers gathered to reminisce about the show. One wrote: "The greatest British TV detective series in my view. Once the central team of Jim, Michael and Jackie was established they had a brilliant set of characters to play with and the early series with the longer multi-episode stories had a depth of character and complexity of plotting you don’t see elsewhere."
A second praised: "Never a better TV detective than Jim Taggart, you just looked at Mark McManus' careworn face and thought 'Yep, that's a man who's seen 30 years on the tough streets of Glasgow!'" A third echoed: "One of the best crime shows on TV.. There are still episodes that stick in my mind from all those years ago, when I was just a wee lad). McManus was the man, obviously, but the supporting cast were fantastic."
Someone else added: "Taggart was a classic." Another fan penned: "I spent ALL of 2022, 2023 & a bit of 2024 hunting down every episode on DVD. I'm still yet to watch every episode but I absolutely prefer the later eps of Taggart as they were much darker."
All 27 seasons of Taggart are available to stream on Channel 5 now.
