now i am watching harry potter, so it's like brit-day around here.

law & order UK - who knew? i was flipping around the channels today and found this programme on the BBC america channel. it's in most ways exactly like the law & order shows in america - two detectives do their thing, their tough boss tells them to suck it up and work harder, they finally collect enough evidence, then the lawyers step in for the prosecution. so, it's the same in the pattern, but of course the details are completely different. the accents. the vocabulary. the relationships. the prejudices. the wardrobe. apparently in britain the barristers wear wigs and robes, looking for all the world like 18th century courtiers. why do they do that?

"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: The police who investigate crime, and the Crown Prosecutors who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories."

the thing that makes law & order work for so long, and also CSI, is that the episodes focus on the stories and not the characters. you really don't have to watch from week to week. you can watch in any order, usually. i mean, sometimes there'll be a two-parter, but usually you will get independent little stories. and, you can watch them years later, and they're still good. in fact, you can watch the UK version and it's good, too. well, except for the silly little wigs.