Taggart "Taggart" was one of the UK's longest-running television dramas and the longest-running police drama after the cancellation of "The Bill". Mark McManus, who played the title character Jim Taggart, died in 1994; however, the series continued under the same name. The series theme music is "No Mean City" sung by Maggie Bell. The Scottish BAFTA-winning pilot episode, "Killer", directed by Laurence Moody and broadcast in 1983, introduced the character Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Jim Taggart (played by Mark McManus until his death in 1994), a tough and experienced detective who had worked his way up through the ranks. His original
Taggart sidekick was Detective Sergeant (DS) Peter Livingstone (Neil Duncan). Livingstone represented the new breed of young graduates entering the police force, and frequently had a difficult relationship with Taggart as a result. Taggart's boss in the pilot was Superintendent Robert Murray (Tom Watson), known as "The Mint" after the well-known sweet. This humour was continued in the subsequent series, when Taggart's boss after the second episode ("Dead Ringer") being Superintendent Jack McVitie (Iain Anders), nicknamed "The Biscuit" because he shared his name with a popular brand of biscuits. Another important character was Taggart's wife Jean (Harriet Buchan), whose physical disability