John Thaw Archive

We’ve been waiting for this, and it’s finally here. The Sweeney in its full glory, restored and released on Blu-ray Disc in 2025, to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the series. 

Series One is officially released on 2 June 2025. At the time of writing, it seems we can expect Series Two to land in September. 

Of course I had to grab this as soon as it was released. I pre-ordered my copy from HMV (it’s also available from other retailers) who made my weekend by delivering it ahead of the official release date -it actually turned up on 31 May. So, here follows my review of this Blu-ray set. This is based purely on my personal opinion and is for information and entertainment purposes.

I haven’t watched all the episodes in their entirety yet, but have had a pretty solid scan through the discs.

So, first impressions. Let’s start with the presentation. My personal opinion? Nice. I quite like the cover art. The disc set comes in a glossy slipcover. Inside is a fold-out case with a repeat of the cover. This folds out flat to access the discs, and has nice arty photos from the series on the inside panels. Behind each disc is some further photo-art, which sort of adds to the overall aesthetic but could be considered unnecessary, particularly as the shape of the disc holders distorts the view of these. It has been noted that Regan looks like he has a cute animal filter on. Yeah. Moving on…

Included is a glossy little colour booklet, containing more photos and a couple of articles:

1) “Dennis Waterman & The Sweeney” (August 2002): instantly recognisable as the Foreword written by Dennis Waterman for Sweeney: The Official Companion. 

2) “Creating and Casting The Sweeney” by Matthew Lee: a concise piece summarizing the casting of John Thaw, Dennis Waterman and Garfield Morgan in their roles, and giving credit to the guest performers in series one. 

The Blu-ray contents at the back of the booklet give a very concise synopsis of each episode in the series, and notes the Special Features included on each disc. The back cover of the booklet has a short write-up on the restoration process of the pilot episode Regan and The Sweeney series. 

On to the nitty-gritty… What’s on the discs, and what’s the quality like? You get 5 discs. This is the entire Series One, and the episodes are complete. This release is in the original 4:3 (1:33:1) format. The Thames salute has also been restored and is included, along with the original commercial break captions.

The disc menu looks like this (sans the slight reflection from my TV screen!). As you can see, you’ve got options on the audio here, isolated music score, and subtitles available. The navigation of the disc menu wasn’t the most intuitive one I’ve ever come across and it took me a moment to get the feel of it. But the picture and text are crystal clear.

The original pilot ‘episode’ Regan is included in this set. For some reason I hadn’t expected it so for me this was a bonus. There again, it was included in Network’s The Definitive Collection box set if not the separate The Complete First Series set or [to my knowledge] the later The Complete Series with the plastic clamshell cover. Anyway, pleasant surprise. 

Regan is restored, and -yes, it looks good! It has disc one to itself, which contains two versions. We have the original Armchair Cinema television film at the uncut 77-minute length, with Armchair Cinema titles and theme music. AND, there is a ‘cut-down’ version; chopped to 51 minutes to fit the episode format, and given The Sweeney titles, theme music and break captions. Other than the novelty value of making it look like an episode of the series rather than the pilot television film it actually was, I’m not completely sold on this. I have watched the cut version through from start to finish and my first impression is that you can tell the cut scenes are cut and consequently it’s missing something. I may come back to this with a full review and comparison in the future.

It is made very clear that the first episode “Ringer” is of a lower quality than the other episodes. Due to no master materials existing for this episode, “Ringer” had to be reconstructed from some ‘faded and worn’ 16mm prints. That taken into consideration, it’s not half bad. 

The rest of the series and Regan were restored from the original 16mm negatives. They have kept the original grain and I think this was a good call. My overall opinion on the picture quality? Beautiful! Let’s remember that this series is 50 years old. Fifty years old. To see something from half a century ago remastered to the degree that it looks pretty damn good on my 58” HD screen, well, it’s a job well done, I’d say. Personally, I’m happy. 

I’m speaking as a diehard The Sweeney fan, of course, and I personally was happy to pay out to add this beauty to my collection. Be smart, obviously. If you can’t spare the money, don’t do it. If you’re honestly expecting it to look like it was shot last week, also don’t do it. (But if you are, you’re probably not watching The Sweeney…!)

I tried to get some photos or videos to show the quality, but I can’t do any better than the official videos that are already up on YouTube, so I’ll show you one of those. It is as good as it looks.

What Special Features are included, and how does this compare to the previous releases from Network? At first glance, this set contains largely the same special features as were included with The Definitive Collection / The Complete Series One, however there are a couple of notable additions and omissions. 

What’s not included here but was present on the Network DVDs are the first episode of John Thaw’s sitcom Thick as Thieves, and the episode of Special Branch that Dennis Waterman appeared in. I can only guess that this omission had something to do with licensing. Are they are great loss? Debatable. The average fan of The Sweeney might have been interested to see the two stars in other roles from the same era. That said, a dyed-in-wool fan of John Thaw most likely already has the full Thick as Thieves DVD set. Fans of Dennis Waterman might lament the loss of the Special Branch episode, since the purchase of the complete box set just to see his one episode is a mighty tug on the purse strings. 

Extras that were on the Network release that are included on this edition are: 

The interview with series creator Ian Kennedy Martin.

The same episode introductions by the guest stars, as optional extras. 

Optional audio commentaries by Dennis Waterman, Garfield Morgan, Ted Childs, Chris Burt, Trevor Preston, Troy Kennedy-Martin, Tom Clegg, David Wickes, Bill Westley. 

New to this edition is an audio commentary on the episode “Jackpot”, which is provided by the authors of The Sweeney: The Official Companion, Robert Fairclough & Mike Kenwood. 

Also new to this edition:

The Reconstructed Titles from Original Stills and the Vintage Thames Trailer for “Jackpot”. 

“Restoring The Sweeney”; an updated version giving the details of the restoration for this Blu-ray release; an informative piece that will go some way to giving you an idea of the painstaking work that has gone into this project. Watch this if you’ve had any reservations about shelling out your fifty quid for the set. You’ll feel better for it.

Finally, as stated earlier, this release is the original 4:3 format. We have learnt from the video The Sweeney Restoration: Behind the Scenes posted to YouTube that there has also been a set of widescreen 16:9 masters made, with the commercial breaks removed, however there are no plans for this to be used as yet.

That’s it! A review of the Series Two Blu-ray will be coming when it is released (expected September 2025).

Please feel free to leave any comments, thoughts, opinions, etc. 

Cheers!

#TheSweeneySteve

No one paid me or gave me any other incentive to write this review. We have no affiliate links or any other profit schemes here at the John Thaw Archive; just an appreciation for the man and his work.