Z-Cars Watt), James Ellis (Bert Lynch) and Brian Blessed ("Fancy" Smith). Barlow and Watt were later spun into a separate series "Softly, Softly". The title comes from the radio call signs allocated by Lancashire Constabulary. Lancashire police divisions were lettered from north to the south: "A" Division (based in Ulverston) was the detached part of Lancashire at the time around Barrow-in-Furness, "B" Division was Lancaster, and so on. Letters further into the alphabet were in the south around the Manchester and Liverpool areas. (See also the Wikipedia page about Home Office radio.) The TV series took the non-existent signs Z-Victor 1
Z-Cars episodes and is still open to information regarding missing editions of 'lost' BBC television programmes. British vintage television enthusiasts Kaleidoscope are also interested in the recovery of 'lost' television shows, regardless of their original maker or broadcaster. In a 2000 poll to find the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century conducted by the British Film Institute, "Z-Cars" was voted 63rd. It was also included in television critic Alison Graham's alphabetical list of 40 "all-time great" TV shows published in "Radio Times" in August 2003. Z-Cars Z-Cars or Z Cars is a British television drama series centred on