Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.

Harry Webster (David Lyon) is an apparently normal husband and father who resides in contemporary Nottingham, England, which was once host to a flourishing textile industry. One day, Harry leaves his house and vanishes. A note he left behind alludes to a double life he no longer wishes to lead. His wife Liz (Annette Crosbie) conducts a search for her husband. Her findings raise a disturbing question: Did Harry have anything to do with a series of recent factory bombings?

Octavius Caesar (later renamed Augustus Caesar, son of the murdered Julius Caesar), Marc Antony, and Lepidus form the triumvirate, the three rulers of the Roman Empire. Antony, though married to Fulvia, spends his time in Egypt, living a life of decadence and conducting an affair with Queen Cleopatra. In Antony's absence, Caesar and Lepidus worry about Pompey's increasing strength.

The efforts of three children, who live in high rise flats, to save a donkey from two small-time crooks who want to sell it as horsemeat, by providing a temporary stable for the donkey in the block of high-rise flats.

The lives of Bodie and Doyle, top agents for Britain's CI5 (Criminal Intelligence 5), and their controller, George Cowley. The mandate of CI5 was to fight terrorism and similar high-profile crimes. Cowley, a hard ex-MI5 operative, hand-picked each of his men. Bodie is a cynical ex-SAS paratrooper and mercenary whose nature ran to controlled violence, while his partner, Doyle, comes to CI5 from the regular police force, and is more of an open minded liberal. Their relationship is often contentious, but they are the top men in their field, and the ones to whom Cowley always assigned to the toughest cases.

Background is a 1973 American short documentary film directed by Carmen D'Avino. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. The original version was preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.