Wycliffe (television)
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See also Wycliffe.
Wycliffe was a British TV series based on W.J. Burley's novels about Detective Superintendent Charles Wycliffe. It was broadcast on ITV between 1993 and 1998.
The series was set in Cornwall, and many of the crimes Wycliffe (Jack Shepherd) had to solve were connected in some way to drug smuggling operations. He was assisted by DI Doug Kersey (Jimmy Yuill) and DC, subsequently DI, Lucy Lane (Helen Masters).
Initially a fairly average procedural police drama, in later series the characters were fleshed out and the show took on a darker tone, including Wycliffe himself being shot, resulting in him wearing a neck brace for much of the final series. In another slow-burning story arc, Lane was twice promoted, leading her to suspect that she was being used to fulfil gender quotas in the force rather than being judged on her ability, a suspicion partly borne out by her obvious inability to cope with the pressures of higher rank. Later episodes saw her threatening to leave the force altogether.
During the filming of the final series, Jimmy Yuill fell ill, and though he made a full recovery, the producers refused to allow him to return to the programme for insurance reasons. With Yuill gone, Shepherd and Masters chose not to continue. The final episode, one of the bleakest in the programme's history, saw Wycliffe framed for drug smuggling, his innocence only being proven in the last few seconds of the show.