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
Johnny Pearson the late 1960s until the end of its run in 1974. In Australia, his best-known library music piece was "Power Drive," which was used as the theme for the 1969-75 police drama "Division 4". Some of Johnny Pearson's library music was also used as background scene music for the Ten Network series, "Prisoner". Also during late 2011, another Johnny Pearson track, "And a Very Good Morning to You", from 1970, was used as a piece of background music, on the Nine Network series, "Underbelly". The track "Sleepy Shores" was also used as incidental music in some of the courting scenes