feeling listless

TV For a while 'The Bill' was the only police drama I would watch. I liked the mini-drama aspect of it -- the crime would be set up, investigated and wrapped up in half and hour. I liked the simplicity of it -- the procedure. It was genre -- in a good way. But then soap elements began to be introduced and now it's just a cop version of Holby City. Shame. Jack Kibble-White from 'Off The Telly' goes into some depth on the development of the show and how other similar series have been and gone around it, with their own ideas on how the format should be worked.

"Evidently, the format of The Bill did not lend itself well to the kind of emotionally charged storylines that were attracting large audiences elsewhere. Whilst occasionally it proved possible to inflict life-changing events on long-running characters, by and large, The Bill's commitment to realism meant that, like their real-life counterparts, the residents of Sun Hill would remain emotionally detached from their investigations. Crucially then, the episodes which would mark The Bill's transition from pure crime drama to a programme with soap opera credentials would require one of the series' most important characters to become personally involved in a criminal investigation."

I suppose if Sherlock Holmes had been written now, we would have see him getting over his morphene injection and Watson trying to come to terms with his death.