Taggart - Set 2 Planned for Feb, 2010

The world's longest continually running police drama

A hard-driving cop drama with a hard-edged Scottish burr, Taggart deals in a world of prostitutes, drug dealers, crime lords, and killers. In eight tightly crafted episodes, a team of Glasgow detectives use their collective wits and street smarts to tackle murder in this very tough town. Sometimes that means taking on hardened crime bosses, sometimes innocent victims with years to plot their revenge. Each time it means getting inside the mind of murderers—how they think, how they act, how they kill.

With its deadpan humor, sordid setting, and "witty scripts rich with Glasgow patter" (The Guardian, U.K.), this quintessentially Scottish series has won universal appeal. Starring Alex Norton (Patriot Games), John Michie (To Walk with Lions), Blythe Duff, and Colin McCredie.

Airing for 26 years, Taggart is the longest-running police drama on television, though it's only aired 100 episodes in that time (that's less than 5 seasons of an American show). Acorn Media has announced Taggart Set 2 will be released on February 23, 2010. The 4-disc set features 8 episodes (559 mins) from 2003 and 2004. All episodes will be Anamorphic Widescreen (1.78:1), with English stereo audio. Episodes include:

Episode 1: Penthouse & Pavement
After a drug-fueled sex party, a successful writer is found strangled in an alley next to an unconscious hooker. It emerges that a number of prostitutes have been attacked recently—and they all knew the dead man. Who wanted to kill the novelist, and why assault the women as well? Burke and his team dig deep to find the answers.

Episode 2: Atonement
Twenty years after a robbery that killed an innocent man, someone has started murdering the gang members responsible for the crime. Burke ignores the prime suspect in the case, seeming to let personal considerations get in the way of his better judgment. But for the chief inspector, it's a matter of trusting his instinct and sticking to his guns.

Episode 3: Compensation
When a farmer fallen on hard times is burned to death, Burke and company head to the countryside to investigate. Tensions in the area run high between the locals and a pushy land developer from the city, and the murder of a second farmer with financial problems leaves everyone wondering who will be next.

Episode 4: Saints and Sinners
A high-flying lawyer is killed after a night of hard drinking with his law partner and a corner-cutting developer. Within days, the other two also become targets. The team search for an unidentified fourth man at the restaurant—and for a motive behind the shootings.

Episode 5: Puppet on a String
A series of stabbings with hypodermic syringes puts the detectives in pursuit of a clinical killer. Their chief suspect is a disgraced doctor whose drug trials caused the death of a patient. But the man has a cast-iron alibi. The case takes a macabre turn when a local reporter starts receiving body parts in the mail.

Episode 6: The Wages of Sin
After a young woman overdoses, her death is quickly followed by two murders: a drug-ferrying cab driver and the woman's father, a city jeweler. A lawyer who represents a local crime boss—and who introduced the victim to drugs—seems to be the link between the deaths. But there are others with secrets to hide and motives that lay closer to home.

Episode 7: The Ties That Bind
Why would someone fake the murder of a middle-aged librarian who had already died of natural causes? Could it be linked to the killing of a joyriding homeless teenager? The detectives follow the trail to a very unexpected place.

Episode 8: In Camera
An infatuated Ross covers for his new girlfriend when she finds a dead body in her country cottage. One lie leads to another, however, and soon the detective is in over his head. Meanwhile, an old murder case comes back to haunt him, but reopening it may provide the key to solving the current crime.

Suggested retail price is $59.99 U.S./$74.99 CAN, but you can preorder it from Amazon.com for $41.99