Softly, Softly (TV series) Alexis Kanner as DC Matt Stone. Although popular with audiences, Kanner appears to have alienated cast and crew with erratic behaviour during live recordings, and the character was dropped after only nine episodes. He later played the recalcitrant Number 48 in the final episode of "The Prisoner". The first two series continued the trend set by producer David Rose with "Z-Cars", and transmitted the majority of episodes live. This was one of the last long-running British TV series to do this. From series three onwards all episodes were pre-recorded. The original theme music was, like "Z-Cars", a folk-song arrangement by
The Samurai (TV series) "The Samurai" was composed by Hirooki Ogawa and was quite innovative for the time. It uses both Western and traditional instruments, with percussion playing a large part. There is a series theme song which is played frequently using both vocal and instrumental variations, in various keys and tempos. There are also a number of leitmotifs which recur throughout the series. Individual stories often have their own musical themes, the most notable of these being the "running" music and the "House of Death" theme in Phantom Ninjas and the "puppet player" song in Puppet Ninja. Presumably responding to the increasing interest