left the series in 1987 and in 1990 a new female sidekick Jackie Reid (Blythe Duff) was introduced. McManus died in 1994 during the filming of an episode. Taggart's absence in the broadcast story was explained by his being in meetings with the Chief Constable throughout. In 1995 the episode "Black Orchid" opened with Taggart's funeral. Despite the death of the title character the series continued. Jardine was promoted to Detective Inspector and DC Stuart Fraser (Colin McCredie) was introduced, becoming the long-suffering sidekick to Jardine, former long-suffering sidekick to Taggart. Fraser was later revealed to be gay. McCredie had made an early appearance in Taggart when he played a suspect part of a youth gang. DI Robbie Ross (John Michie) joined the team in 1998. Michie had made an early appearance in Taggart in 1990 when he played a suspect called Robby Meiklejohn in an episode called "Love Knot". When MacPherson left the series in 2002 his character was killed off and replaced with DCI Matt Burke, formerly of Special Branch, played by Alex Norton, who had previously appeared in the series playing murder suspect George Bryce in 1986 in the episode "Knife-Edge". Much was made of the platonic love between Jardine and Reid. The two were shown to share a sibling-like bond. Both pursued a number of relationships with other characters over the years. Reid even got married but later separated from her husband, who then died. The personal relationships of the police officers in this series were shown as nothing to be envious of: Reid described herself, Burke, Ross and Fraser as "three divorcees and a celibate homosexual" in the episode "Penthouse and Pavement". After filming was completed on series 26 in December 2009, Colin McCredie was informed that he and his character would not be returning for filming of the next series. ITV/STV dispute ITV plc, the company that operates the ITV network franchises in England, Wales and southern Scotland, failed to announce whether it planned to show any new episodes of Taggart, prompting STV to suspend production of the programme in September 2009. STV announced in November 2009 that it would produce new episodes of Taggart for broadcast in 2010 regardless of whether ITV plc decided to screen it. In February 2010 it was announced that ITV and STV had put their wider commercial differences to one side to make a new series, which Scottish