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Z-Cars (sometimes written as Z Cars, and always pronounced 'zed', never 'zee') was a British television drama series centred around the work of regular beat police officers in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby near Liverpool, in the north-west of England. Produced by the BBC and screened on BBC1, it debuted in January 1962 and ran for 16 years until September 1978. Due to an administrative quirk, for the first few years of its existence it was produced by the BBC's documentary department rather than the drama department.

The programme was created by writers Troy Kennedy Martin and Allan Prior (father of Steeleye Span's Maddy Prior) with producer Elwyn Jones, and was a deliberate attempt to create a more realistic portrayal of modern policing than had been seen on British television before. This was a conscious antidote to the BBC's established police drama, Dixon of Dock Green, which portrayed a very 'safe' and 'cosy' image of a stereotypical 'British bobby'. The main writers included John Hopkins (who also became script editor) and Alan Plater. The writing team created a 'kitchen sink realism' style of scripting unknown on British television at that time.

In a 2000 poll of industry professionals to find the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century conducted by the British Film Institute, Z-Cars was voted into 63rd place. It was also included in an alphabetical list of the forty greatest TV shows published in Radio Times magazine in August 2003.

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The 'Z-Cars' of the title was a reference to the patrol cars the police used at the time (often Ford Zodiacs and Ford Zephyrs), and the stories the series depicted would frequently revolve around the activities of the pairs of officers patrolling that particular week. Riding on the crest of a wave of changing social attitudes and a changing television era, the social realism of Z-Cars, coupled with the interesting police storylines, garnered huge popularity for the programme, although it was initially somewhat less popular with the real-life police force who disliked the sometimes unsympathetic characterisation of officers. Being set outside of London in the North of England also helped give it a distinctly regional flavour, something rarely seen on British television at the time, when most BBC dramas were made and set in the south.

The one character to stay present throughout the entire run of Z-Cars was Bert Lynch, played by James Ellis (though John Phillips as Det. Chief Supt. Robins would reappear sporadically during the show's run - by the end of the series he had become Chief Constable!). Other major characters in the early days of the programme were Stratford Johns (Inspector Barlow), Frank Windsor (Det.Sgt Watt), Robert Keegan (Sgt Blackitt), Joseph Brady (PC 'Jock' Weir) and Brian Blessed ('Fancy' Smith). Blessed went on to become a popular film actor also, appearing in movies such as Flash Gordon (1980), Henry V (1989), Hamlet (1996) and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999). Also appearing in 1960s episodes as David Graham was Colin Welland, who went on to become a scriptwriter, winning an Academy Award for Chariots of Fire in 1981, upon receipt of which he delivered the famous "the British are coming!" speech. Other well known British actors who played regular roles in the early years of the series included John Thaw and Leonard Rossiter.

Just think of all the tv cop shows it has spawned since.