Gritty, yes. Fast-cut, no: The Wire unfolds at its own slow, wordy pace, and probably contains only as many cuts per minute as an episode of "Lewis". American, well, yes, but what does that mean, other than "set in America and made by an American production company"? Realistic, yes, apart from some very obviously fictional contrivances (not specified here in case of spoilers). 500-episode seasons, no, alas: no season of The Wire had more than 12 episodes. Finally, the average episode of The Wire probably had no higher a body count than the average Lewis episode.

I love them both, by the way.

By how slowly Lewis moved last night. I didn't think they made TV that way any more and it was real pleasure. Of course the plot was completely unbelieveable but no more so than most TV police dramas. Great.

I was being a tad Devil's Advocate there Paul, and maybe even a tad xenophobe, but your measured and no doubt perfectly accurate response puts me to shame! Live and let live, eh? Mind you, I still cling to the view that 'life's too short' and one can make choices about what one starts to watch (and then gets sucked into watching endless seasons of the stuff 'to see what happens'). I watch very little TV, hence something like Lewis is a leaisurely indulgence. That said, I DID watch the last series of 'The Apprentice' and can't help feeling - however grotesquely compelling - that it's a waste of any viewer's time: sour, capitalistic, pseudo-beardy barrow-boy millionaire and his bizarre pair of tell-tale cronies with a shower of grasping, delusional applicants (whom we'd all run a mile from if we met them in a pub - sorry, wine bar) aspiring to his lofty, hollow pinnacle. I think I might just have convinced myself NOT to get sucked into the new series...

last night, turned off the DVD & Lewis appeared on my TV. Plodding is the only word that sprang to mind I'm afraid. Still Oxford looked a lot prettier than Baltimore. Now how do I fill my one hour a night now? Gave up on Sopranos & Six Feet Under after a few seasons. Boston Legal is fun but hardly absorbing, The Badge anyone?

I meant The Shield.

So I'm not about to start with Lewis. Kevin Whately is such a blank plank.

I do, however, find nothing more relaxing than Midsomer Murders.

and Lewis is a more than adequate substitute. I've watched the Morse episodes so many times that it's a novelty to be able to watch a new episode of Lewis without knowing what is going to happen in the end.

I've long assumed that the Sunday night primetime schedule was based on the assumption that everyone uses the time to catch up with the stuff they recorded the rest of the week but never got a chance to watch because there was always another football match on. Having seen some of the trailers for Lewis and Morse and Midsomer Murders (and that thing set in the 60's - can't remember it's name) I thought it they were supposed to put me off watching - they work.

Generation Kill or digging out the Cracker or Beiderbeck Affair dvds.

Season 2 is perhaps not quite as engrossing (or maybe that should be 'confusing') as Season 1 but if you haven't seen it, start at the beginning. For God's sake don't try to jump in half way through!

but I'm still loving it.

Yes, the unsung genius from up north was scriptwriter for this evening's 'Lewis' - a classic episode, surely. Plater also wrote last 'season's (sorry, last series')best episode - the one where students are running tours of Oxford telling bogus anecdotes about's Tolkien playing the banjo and so on. And he wrote the fabulous 'Beiderbecke' trilogy in the '80s... Has this man been interviewed in Word yet? Can he borrow a fake beard, if that's what it takes...?