Editing Cracker (British TV series) (section)

==Overview==
Fitz is [[Irish Scottish people|Scottish of Irish origin]], [[alcoholic]], a [[chain smoker]], [[obese]], [[Sedentary lifestyle|sedentary]], [[problem gambling|addicted to gambling]], [[mania|manic]], foul-mouthed and [[sarcastic]], yet cerebral and brilliant. He is a genius in his speciality: [[criminal psychology]]. As Fitz confesses in "Brotherly Love": "I drink too much, I smoke too much, I gamble too much. I ''am'' too much."

Each case spanned several episodes and [[cliffhanger]]s were quite often used, but it was not until the end of the second series that a cliffhanger was employed to tie off the series. Some of the plotlines in the cases took as their starting point real events such as the [[Hillsborough disaster]], whilst others were purely fictional with only tangential ties to actual events.

Several different psychotic types were explored during the run of the show with increasingly complex psychological motivations that, as the series entered the middle of the second series, began to expand beyond the criminals being investigated to the regular cast members. As the series moved forward, the storylines became as much about the interactions of the regulars as they were about the crimes. In many later episodes, in fact, the crimes often became background to intense, provocative explorations of the police officers' reactions to the crimes they investigated.

To emphasise how fine a line the police (and Fitz) walk in their close association with criminals, all three series featured several stories in which the police become victims of crime or themselves commit criminal acts such as murder, rape, obstruction of justice and assault and battery.