Shark in the Park wasa New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 television drama series. A police procedural

Police procedural

The police procedural is a subgenre of detective fiction which attempts to convincingly depict the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes. While traditional detective novels usually concentrate on a single crime, police procedurals frequently depict investigations into several...

, it revolved around the professional and private lives of a group of officers at a Wellington

Wellington

Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...

 police station under the command of Inspector Brian "Sharky" Finn. The title came from the informal code term used by officers to indicate that the Inspector was about and they should "look busy".

The series ran for three series in 1989, 1990, and 1992, totalling about 45 episodes. Many of the cast had regular roles in the series and several became well-known throughout New Zealand as a result of the series. The show also featured many well-known actors in guest roles, among them Lucy Lawless

Lucy Lawless

Lucy Lawless, MNZM is a New Zealander actress and singer best known for playing the title character of the internationally successful television series Xena: Warrior Princess....

, Michael Hurst

Michael Hurst

Michael Eric Hurst, ONZM is a New Zealand actor, director and writer, mostly on stage and television. He is probably best known internationally for playing Iolaus in the television programs Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and companion series Xena: Warrior Princess...

, Temuera Morrison

Temuera Morrison

Temuera Derek Morrison is a New Zealand-born actor. He has become one of the country's most famous stars for his roles as the abusive Jake "the Muss" Heke in 1994's Once Were Warriors and as bounty hunter Jango Fett and the Clone Troopers in the Star Wars series...

 and Karl Urban

Karl Urban

Karl-Heinz Urban is a New Zealand actor.He is known for playing Éomer in the second and third installments of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in the 2009 film Star Trek and Julius Caesar on Xena: Warrior Princess...

.

The series was produced by the Gibson Group and broadcast by TV One – it has since been repeated on TVNZ 6

TVNZ 6

TVNZ 6 was a digital-only, commercial-free television channel operated by Television New Zealand. It was available in 60.3% of New Zealand homes on the Freeview and SKY Television Digital platforms...

. Writers for the show included Fran Walsh

Fran Walsh

Frances "Fran" Walsh, Lady Jackson, MNZM is a screenwriter, film producer and occasional musician. She is the spouse of filmmaker Peter Jackson. They have two children: Billy and Katie....

, later to become well-known through her association with Peter Jackson

Peter Jackson

Sir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , adapted from the novel by J. R. R...

 and her work on films such as the Lord of the Rings films.

Recurring cast

• Jeffrey Thomas
  Jeffrey Thomas (actor)
  Jeffrey Thomas is a Welsh-born New Zealand actor, best known for his television roles. He rose to prominence in New Zealand in the late 1980s with the lead role of Inspector "Sharky" Finn in the TVNZ police drama series Shark in the Park, and is also well-known for his roles in two long-running New...
  
   as Inspector Brian Finn
• David Geary
  David Geary
  David Geary is an award winning playwright from New Zealand. He also writes for television.Geary studied acting at Toi Whakaari New Zealand Drama School in Wellington. He graduated in 1987. His play Lovelocks Dream Run was published by Victoria University Press in 1993. The play is studied at...
  
   as Gerald
• Des Stephens as ?
• Grant Tilly
  Grant Tilly
  Grant Tilly is a New Zealand actor, writer, and artist.- Biography :Tilly was born in Sydney, Australia in 1937, moving with his family to New Zealand at one month of age. He was educated in Wellington, taking art at Wellington technical College in the early 1950s...
  
   as Inspector Englebretsen
• William Kircher
  William Kircher
  William Kircher is a New Zealand actor who is scheduled to appear in the film adaption of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.William Kircher first came to prominence in New Zealand television in the police drama series Shark in the Park....
  
   as BP
• Rima Te Wiata as Jacko
• Geoffrey Heath as Roger Blackman
• John Wraight as Smudge
• Joanna Briant as Wally
• Nathaniel Lees
  Nathaniel Lees
  Nathaniel Lees is a New Zealand born actor and theatre director of Samoan descent. He is known for his role as Captain Mifune in The Matrix trilogy and his role as "Uglúk" in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. He has also had roles on the TV series Young Hercules, Hercules: The Legendary...
  
   as Barker
• Russell Smith as Bernie
• Robert Pollock
  Robert Pollock (New Zealand actor)
  Robert Pollock is a New Zealand actor. He has been in many roles since 1988. He is currently teaching Drama at Whangarei Boys High School, NZ.-Film:* Beyond Gravity * Once Were Warriors - Policeman...
  
   as Dingo
• K .J. Wilson as Sergeant Jesson
• Darren Young as Om
• Brett Bailey as UB1 (Uniform Branch 1)