The Sweeney displaying "1979". In "Sweeney 2" (1978), George and Jack eventually find themselves going to the island of Malta in order to track down a group of particularly violent armed robbers who have been committing bank and payroll robberies all over London and kill anybody that gets in their way, even members of their own gang, Jack & George were assigned the case by their recently convicted chief inspector as his last order, as he is about to be charged with corruption. In "The Sweeney" (2012) the setting moved to the present day, with Regan being played by Ray Winstone, Carter
The Sweeney was specifically written for John Thaw, who was by this time a friend of Ian Kennedy Martin, with whom he'd worked on the TV drama series "Redcap" in the 1960s. From the very beginning the show was seen as having series potential. After "Regan" scored highly in the ratings, work began on the development of the series proper. Ian Kennedy Martin's idea was for the series to be mainly studio-based, with more dialogue and less action, but producer Ted Childs disagreed, and in consequence Ian Kennedy Martin parted company with the project. Childs produced it on film, not videotape, so