SPECIAL BRANCH – THE COMPLETE SERIES BOX SET (PG) is out on August 4th 2008. This entertaining British TV cop series introduced a new breed – the coppers who are actually trendy and cool – to the British public, and laid the ground for ‘The Sweeney’ which came less than a decade later. This groundbreaking and thrilling television series will be available as a 16 – disc set. It will include all episodes from the four previous SPECIAL BRANCH.

The very first series of this fondly-remembered, action-packed and drama-filled cop-show was aired in September 1969. The originality and heroic appeal of its subject matter (the life and work of an elite police unit fighting the criminal underworld) meant that the show immediately became a ratings success. Starring Derren Nesbitt (Where Eagles Dare), Wensley Pithey (Edward and Mrs. Simpson), Fulton Mackay (Porridge) and Morris Perry (The Sweeney), the show presents the coppers in a light that had never been seen before – the coppers are now cool! The second series was aired in 1970 to an eager and impatient public.

In 1973, after a hiatus of two years, the show was resurrected and revamped as the first series to be produced by Thames Television’s new Euston Films subsidiary. With much higher production values and shot mostly on location instead of wholly in studio as the previous two series, the show had also been recast. It now stars George Sewell (Z-Cars) and Patrick Mower (Emmerdale Farm).