YMMV / The Sweeney

• Harsher in Hindsight: "Chalk and Cheese" has a scene where Carter almost physically attacks a woman and has to be restrained by his colleagues. This became a lot more uncomfortable when Dennis Waterman's third wife accused him of domestic abuse.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • George Cole made a guest appearance in "Tomorrow Man". He and Dennis Waterman would later star in Minder. Furthermore, Patrick Malahide appears in "Drag Act".
  • Waterman's New Tricks co-star Alun Armstrong appears in "Stay Lucky Eh?"
  • The main characters are named Carter and Regan.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • A young Ray Winstone has a minor role as a thug in "Loving Arms". Becomes Hilarious in Hindsight when he was cast as Reagan in the film version.
  • Sally Knyvette appears as Angela in "Big Spender", a few years before she found fame as Jenna in Blake's 7.
  • Alan Fowler from "Hit and Run" is played by Gary Waldhorn, who would later be best known for playing David Horton in The Vicar of Dibley.
  • Skef Warren from "Stay Lucky Eh?" is played by John Challis, who would later be best known for playing Boycie in Only Fools and Horses and The Green Green Grass.
  • Stephen Vane from "Poppy" is played by John D. Collins, who would later be best known for playing Fairfax in 'Allo 'Allo!.
  • Ted Greenhead from "Trojan Bus" is played by Leslie Dwyer, who would later be best known for playing Mr. Partridge in Hi-de-Hi!.
  • Mrs. Davies from "Hit and Run" is played by Liz Smith, who would later be best known for playing Mrs. Cropley in The Vicar of Dibley and Nana in The Royle Family.
  • Colin McGruder from "Golden Fleece" and "Trojan Bus" is played by Patrick Mower, who would later be best known for playing Rodney Blackstock in Emmerdale.
  • Mavis from "Drag Act" is played by Vivienne Johnson, who would later be best known for playing Young Mr. Grace's Nurse in Are You Being Served?.
• Seasonal Rot: For the fourth series there were several changes, including a different title sequence and DCI Haskins being absent from a number of episodes. The final series has been criticised as the weakest and this decline in quality led John Thaw and Dennis Waterman to the realisation that the show was in danger of running out of steam and to take the decision to end it while it was still at the peak of its popularity.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The villains in the first episode, most notably BRIAN BLESSED!!!!! as Frank Kemble, a self-made London gangster, and his henchmen, as well as Alex Prosser, a struck-off QC who acts as a representative for bigger crooks. The episode spends some considerable time building up relationships between Kemble and his henchmen and Prosser, as well as showing their ruthlessness by having one of Kemble's henchmen hold a hot iron to Regan's girl's face to get her to talk... only to have the Sweeney apprehend the lot of them and Kemble's sidekick shoot him by mistake.
• Values Dissonance:
  • In "Hit and Run", Regan refers to "Peter the Poofter" and says this when annoyed by a motorist:
  Drive a Jap car and they think they're kamikaze pilots!
  • "Taste of Fear" features a lengthy dialogue scene where Carter talks about how much he finds young schoolgirls sexually attractive.
  • In "May", Regan refers to a money-lender as a "Shylock".
  • In "The Bigger They Are...", Carter puts on a mock-Jamaican accent upon seeing a black woman in unusual dress and Regan casually refers to a black man as a "spade".

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