Heartbeat - Further Textual Analysis

Heartbeat, fairly similarly to Dixon of Dock Green follows a small rural community police force that only has a small number of officers to patrol and maintain law and order in a Yorkshire county in the sixties, similar to Dixon. This programme is set in the same time period as Dixon, the sixties, the supposed 'golden age' of policing in this country. What this presents is another place to make comparisons with Dixon, similarly the lives of the officers are very entwined with the people who live within the small towns and villages  everyone knows the officers by name and they are recognised as ordinary people with normal lives outside of the force. This show also frequently presents the audience the men in their everyday lives and dealing with the small or sometimes larger issues that occur needing the police involvement. The image that can be seen to the left comes from a later episode from the series more contemporary works, the situation the officers are in shows that things do get out of hand from time to time with the two armed men keeping the officers as what seems to be hostages. The idea this links to is that Heartbeat started out as a historical programme to today's understanding, following the simple everyday lives of the officers like Dixon but with the ever changing modern view of the police and the ever increasing demand for more excitement and higher rating reviews would most probably push the creators enough to slightly corporates more action packed episodes just to keep people happy, but these may not have been entirely representative of the time.

The image to the right does well to sum up Heartbeat, the quiet, desolate rural setting which make up most areas patrolled by the known 'A-10 Golden Flash' motorbike and the basic forms of communication to the station representing the time in which the show is set. It is true that during the sixties the best way for many officers in the large rural areas to get around was on motorbike and it was much better (and faster) mode of transport for an officer or two if crime ever needed preventing. Heartbeat reflects the view that was taken over police at the time  and the officers still being everyday members of society and attached to the people, a view much less apparent with the modern times and officers all over facing corruption, cover ups, and committing crimes themselves all appoint to a much more gritty, dark negative view of police compared to Heartbeat and Dixon of Dock Green. The Bill is the closest to being the most realistic with it primarily being a contemporary cover of the current police force serving the nation.