Frost and Mullet

Without giving away too much, in the last ever episode Mullet has a speech about how his relationship with Frost changed over the years.

Mullet was essentially an administrator more than a policeman, which explains how they saw things so differently.

You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill

This seems to happen in many shows - they lose their bite, often they go soft and sentimental, or at the very least the antagonistic characters come to respect each other. No doubt that's nice in real life, but it can spoil a TV series.

Remember Rumpole of the Bailey? In the first year everyone in chambers cordially disliked, or at least mistrusted everybody else (well, Rumpole got along with "the Portia of our chambers", but she was an exception.) But in the following years they became one big happy family, more or less, to the detriment of the comedy.

Or M.A.S.H.: Hotlips and even Frank lost comedic value as we the audience were encouraged to see them as real human beings in the later years.

A Touch of Frost started drifting into sentimentality (by which I mean cheap and manipulative heartstring-tugging) pretty early, at least in the stories. And the characters, too, lost distinctiveness as the writers gave in to actors' need to feel loved. After all, would you like to play a contemptible fool and a butt of everybody's backstabbing jokes for season after season? I can't blame Bruce Alexander for wanting a little more dignity in his part (Mullett), but the comedy lost focus as the writers provided it for him.

And Frost himself changed, most notably in his appearance. In the early shows he was scruffy enough to make Peter Falk's Columbo look natty. By the later years Sir David Jason was wearing bespoke Savile road suits to the nick, while sporting a hundred quid haircut.

It is the fate that series were born for,
It is the early days we mourn for.

In the books Mullet and Frost are at daggers drawn, even more so than in the series. Mullet wants rid of Frost because he is harming Mullet's own chances of promotion. He never gives Frost credit for anything and Frost can't be bothered to argue his corner. The author of the books disowned the series based on his characters because Frost was less earthy and less politcally incorrect in the television series: in the novels he has a habit of surprising people from behind by putting his hand where it's not wanted, for instance. Also in the books, they are all heavy smokers, which is not the case in the TV series.

As for the softening of hostilities between the pair, it is the case that as many years passed their relationship might reasonably have become less antagonistic, perhaps as they got more used to each other or resigned to the other's existence. The earlier stories are based on the half dozen or so novels which are, again, much more earthy and the two characters truly despise one another. But it is also true that long running series have a tendency to drift into being soap operas. Witness Jason's other major series, Only Fools and Horses, which began as a couple of spiv brothers ducking and diving on skid row and ended with them both having wives and young children and reasonably well off.

I think most of the antagonism was due to the suspicion that Mullet secretly wished he was more like Jack but felt he would never get away with it in the same way - the speech in the final episode was touching and confirmed that Mullet did respect Jack and grew to appreciate his ability as a copper

Half Irish, Half German - hated by all. But at least I'm not Welsh