George Gently

The BBC television series is based on the Inspector Gently series of novels written by author Alan Hunter. Hunter wrote dozens of books featuring the character between 1955 and 1999. The show adapts the stories, moving them specifically to the 1960s era in northeast England.

The titular Scotland Yard detective is portrayed by veteran British actor Martin Shaw. He stars alongside Lee Ingleby, who plays his ambitious and often brash young sergeant, John Bacchus. The series ran on BBC One from 2007 to 2017.

The series is set in the 1960s, specifically progressing through the latter half of the decade into the early 1970s by the final season. Gently, a veteran from London's Scotland Yard, relocates to Northumberland and Durham in northeast England. The show tackles the major social and political changes of that specific era.

The show ran for eight seasons, culminating in a feature-length finale in 2017. The BBC produced the series as a set of feature-length television movies rather than traditional shorter episodes. The final season notably addressed the controversial "death penalty" abolition era in the UK.