Law and Order | UK - Part 2

In my earlier post, I wrote of the potential of the new spinoff of L&O, the UK edition. It was off to an auspicious early start, but rapidly lost momentum as it couldn't seem to find a voice to communicate the same level of drama as its American forebears.

Happily, two additional episodes' play after writing that post, I'm pleased to report that the ship is righting itself, and its promise to be a great addition to the L&O franchise, is renewed.

The characters are finding voice, the plotlines are less 2D, and there is reason to be optimistic that it will quickly approach the level of production quality we see in the American versions.

It's not now being run on BBC:America, so about the only way to see the show is via the BitTorrent scene. There's a great private community which is easy to join called "TheBox" which promotes sharing of exclusively British generated television content. You can find the show there.

Off topic: One thing I hate about BBC:America is it's complete disregard for the integrity of the production season for the shows it rebroadcasts. Once a show's run long enough on the BBC, BBCA may pick it up for the American audience, but will only run a smattering of selected episodes from a mix of various production seasons already in the can. Only after discovering TheBox, did I realize just how much "Top Gear" I was missing, and how its ongoing UK run was not getting any sort of timely pickup by BBCA.

Also, if BBCA makes a mint reselling BBC content into the American market, why must brit taxpayers continue to subsidize the BBC via their insane "yearly priviledge of owning a TV" type taxes! To the extent American's find the content popular and pay cable and satellite operators to carry it, I think the brits who pay those TV taxes are entitled to some dividends.

But then, don't get me started on this, because the whole way in which TV in the UK is state-controlled and socalized, while the brits can put out _some_ good content in spite of themselves, if it were wholly privatized, there would be soo much more to love!