Minder - The Complete Collection [DVD]

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The old US TV was so predictable, in that, they always got the bad guy and/or they lived happily ever after and all that rubbish. The dialogue is less sharp as the Gary Webster years(1991-94) come into play, but the final season of Dennis Waterman had noticably lost some, if not all of it's usual spark. I don't have the Minder set but I know that the newest Network version is just a shoddy repackaging of the exact same existing masters that the other UK sets were transferred from. Despite Terry's own prison sentence, with an additional oblique reference to "minor misdemeanours in the dim and distant past", he serves as the show's moral conscience, keeping Arthur from straying too far outside the law and persuading him to do the right thing whether Arthur likes it or not.

In the series 3 episode "In", a German police officer reading Arthur's file reveals that Arthur served 18 months in prison during the 1950s but does not reveal the reason. Arthur's world was mainly populated by petty crooks, fellow minders, dropouts, "tea leaves", "fences" and those happy to quickly turn over dodgy goods, usually (but not always) without violence. McCann, an ex-boxer, has decided to go straight, but with “Arfur’s” shady deals, Terry has his work cut out for him.

Even if Frank Sinatra had expressed an interest there would have been no chance of Dennis Waterman letting him muscle in. After both having lukewarm starts, both series went on to become huge hits, and share much of the same fan base.

It was released as a single in October 1979, credited to 'Dennis Waterman with the Dennis Waterman Band', but failed to enter the charts. The Last Temptation of Daley', 'A Bird in the Hand', 'Him Indoors', 'The Greatest Show in Willesden', 'Too Many Crooks', 'The Odds Couple' and 'The Coach That Came in from the Cold'.

However, an out-of-focus photograph of bride and groom can be seen in the background of one early episode ('Bury my Half at Waltham Green') in Arthur's flat.