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 two-year gap between the third and fourth series while the team made two full-length feature films ("Sweeney!" and "Sweeney 2") to cash-in on the show's popularity. For the fourth series there were several changes, including a different title sequence and DCI Haskins being absent from a number of episodes. The final series has been criticised as the weakest. This decline in quality led John Thaw and Dennis Waterman to the realisation that the show was in danger of running out of steam, and to take the decision to end it while it was still at the peak of its popularity.