With each passing year the chasm between the style of American big box programs and their British counterparts grows wider. Increasingly American mystery/detective/police programs - and to some extent Canadian dramatic ones - rely on violence and action elements and less on the cerebral.
The latest low point of US drama was the so-called CSI trilogy. The writing was so bad in the first episode - CSI Miami - that one wonders if would even get past an inept high school drama teacher. Making matters even worse was David Curaso's affected style and the surprisingly bad acting of Laurence Fishburn.
Things improved only slightly in the second episode - CSI New York ( which incidentally I believe is the best of the three CSI's ).
The Final episode left so many holes in the plot, it could double for swiss cheese. (For example why did the girl who was abducted in Nevada, end up back in Las Vegas after being Shanghai's to New York?) But, there was violence, and action, and, I suspect that's all the Bruckheimer people were happy about.
Then you tune in to British programs like New Tricks, Midsomer Murders, Hustle, Waking the Dead and their ilk and you find programs that test your deductive skills with cunningly crafted plots, not one but several red herrings, fine, often brilliant acting, and violence only when absolutely essential.
Ah Well .. there is always Sports.
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