Silent Witness - Complete Seasons 1-12

oadcast from 1 October - 6 November 2008. The series was created by Nigel McCrery, a former murder squad detective in Nottingham. He later went on to create the hit series New Tricks with Roy Mitchell. The series was based on Prof. Helen Witwell, a forensic pathologist based in Sheffield. McCrery had known Helen while serving as a police officer. The drama itself gets very good viewing figures, as on the tenth series (2006), it normally attracted around six million viewers in the UK (from MediaGuardian.co.uk's overnight report). BARB later revealed the final figures, proving the drama's higher successes as they received around seven million viewers each episode. In the United States, the show airs during 'Mystery Monday' on BBC America.

The programme originally followed the activities of a female pathologist, Dr Sam Ryan (who was promoted to professor part way through the series), played by Amanda Burton. However, Ryan's character departed early in the eighth series in 2004. There had been a succession of regular supporting characters, changing almost every series, but Dr Leo Dalton (William Gaminara) and Dr Harry Cunningham (Tom Ward), who were introduced in the sixth series in 2002, remained in the series and continued as lead characters following Ryan's departure, with Dalton replacing her as professor. A new character, Dr Nikki Alexander (Emilia Fox), was introduced to the team in the eighth series in 2004.