The Thin Blue Line (Seasons 1–2)

The Thin Blue Line (1995–1996) is a British sitcom you can watch online on iFILM, built around Rowan Atkinson at his deadpan best. The setting is a sleepy police station in the fictional town of Gasforth.

Inspector Fowler is a pompous stickler who loves a moral speech and a tidy desk. His station is a circus: glum CID detective Grim sneers at the uniformed lot, dim constable Goody pines after the sharper Maggie, and unflappable Gladstone fires dry one-liners from the sidelines. Fowler, meanwhile, keeps fumbling his courtship of Sergeant Patricia Dawkins.

It was written by Ben Elton, co-creator of Blackadder, and the comedy runs on the same fuel: wordplay, absurdity and very British awkwardness. Two short BBC series, six episodes each. Atkinson plays a buttoned-up bore rather than a clown, which is its own quiet joy. Stream every episode of The Thin Blue Line online on iFILM.