Just dire and getting worse. I keep giving each new series a try and being monumentally disappointed with the quality of the writing and, 50% of the acting.
Of the regulars, they’re mostly good apart from the squinting, moody forensic Irish chap; he’s shit.
Cops fall into a number of predictable categories:
1, Shouty east-end geeeeeeeezah
2, Home-counties posh type
3, Disgruntled lower rank who are smarter than their senior officers
4, Complacent senior officer who wants the easiest result even if it means fitting someone up
5, Overlooked officer trying to make a name for themselves
6, The one who seems a bit lost
Sometimes they combine some of these. Either can be male or female.
Episodes work as such:
1, Show crime
2, Show team making blindingly obvious statements which probably seem smart if you’re writing the same show 4-5 times a year and are phoning it in
3, Opening credits
4, Introduce slightly-too-obvious potential perpetrator
5, Spend the bulk of the first episode leading to a reveal (usually at the start of the 2nd episode) that the one identified in #4 is not the killer
6, Member of the team drops some revelation on a relative of one of the victims as some sort of human interest that in real life would be so far from acceptable it’s untrue (i.e. recent episode, telling a bloke that his supposed nephew was really his son)
7, Spend the second episode introducing the actual killer
Yes I’ve watched quite a few episodes. But I hate myself for it.