Produced by the BBC in association with the Australian Seven Network, and first screened on BBC1, it stars John Nettles as the title character Jim Bergerac, who is initially a detective sergeant in Le Bureau des Étrangers ("The Foreigners' Office", a fictional department dealing with non-Jersey residents), within the States of Jersey Police, but later leaves the force and becomes a private investigator.

It was created by producer Robert Banks Stewart after an earlier detective series, Shoestring, starring Trevor Eve, came to an abrupt end.

Bergerac sometimes dealt with controversial topics; for example, when an old man is unmasked as a Nazi war criminal, his age raised various moral dilemmas.

Supernatural elements occasionally appear in the series, and some episodes end with unpleasant twists, as in "Offshore Trades" and "A Hole In The Bucket".

A Jersey native, he returns to the island at the start of the series after recuperating in England from ill health, dipsomania and major surgery on his leg following an accident caused by his drinking heavily prior to an attempted arrest.

While his status is being considered, he is key to solving a case with old colleagues in the recently formed "Bureau des Étrangers"; he is then posted to that unit and does well.

Bergerac's girlfriends include Francine Leland (Cécile Paoli) (who had been the fiancée of a dead colleague), Marianne Bellshade (Celia Imrie), Susan Young (Louise Jameson) and Danielle Aubry (Thérèse Liotard).

These include Philip Glenister,[11] Julian Glover, Connie Booth, Greta Scacchi, Ray Winstone, Prunella Scales, Louise Lombard, Ronald Pickup, Norman Wisdom, Charles Gray, John Forgeham, Bernard Hepton, Bill Nighy, Joanne Whalley, and Steve McFadden.

Plans for this reservoir were referred to at the start of series four, when Bergerac was forced to seek new accommodation because of them, in the process meeting an estate agent who became his lover.

The Bureau des Étrangers from the third season onwards was located at Haut de la Garenne, a former children's home which in February 2008 became the focus of the Jersey child abuse investigation.

This pink-and-grey building, with a white pillared entrance, first appeared in series 1, episode 6, "Portrait of Yesterday", as the home and wedding venue of the incidental characters.

Mistakes occurred in the supply of the source material for the DVD releases, which meant the episodes of series 1 and 6 were edited versions broadcast originally on UK daytime television.

[citation needed] This was amended for Bergerac: The Complete Collection, a 27-DVD box set released in 2009 which includes all episodes in their full length.

[18] Damien Molony has been cast in the title role, with filming set to take place in Jersey and Plymouth for exterior and interior shots.

New characters include Arthur Wakefield (Philip Glenister), Margaret Heaton (Pippa Haywood), Uma Dalal (Sasha Behar) and Kara (Celine Arden).