Woodentop (The Bill) Woodentop (The Bill) "Woodentop" is an episode of the Thames Television series "Storyboard", which includes a series of one-off plays on different themes. The episode was originally broadcast on 16 August 1983. "Woodentop" became the forerunner to long-running British police television series "The Bill", which went on air 14 months later and continued for 26 years. The name "woodentop" is a colloquialism for beat policemen who traditionally wear helmets; the nickname is itself an allusion to the Children's TV series "The Woodentops". The episode documents PC Jim Carver's first day at Sun Hill Police Station, where he is partnered with
BBC television drama "Brimstone and Treacle" and "Scum" were eventually transmitted some years later. Whenever writers and media analysts criticise the current state of British and particularly BBC television drama, it is frequently the 1960s and 1970s period which they cite as being the most important and influential, with a vast variety of genres (science fiction, crime, historical, family based) and types of programme (series, serials, one-offs, anthologies) being produced. "What may justly be rated as the golden age of television drama reached its zenith," as "The Guardian" described it in their 2004 obituary of Sutton. Or in the words of the Royal