The game's up

I'm very sad. You probably knew that. I'm actually sad tonight, on reading that The Bill is to receive the death sentence for crimes against acting.

In case you're not familiar with this show (and let's face it, only Brits and Australians are), it's a police drama which faded into soapdom. A successor to ground-breaking realist shows like Z Cars, its strengths were tight scripting, a refusal to end with neat conclusions and a clear-eyed view of policing: the characters were complex and often unsympathetic. There were usually many sides to each story, and the producers were extremely quick to pick up on big news from the real world.

Those were the glory days - it gradually became a home for actors whose characters in other soaps had been killed off, and so it became filled with beefcake and totty who wouldn't (or couldn't) do moral complexity: bent coppers don't look great on the CVs of buffed narcissists looking for charidee work.

I'll miss The Bill. Perhaps it will get time off for good behaviour and inhabit the twilight world of repeats channels. You naysayers: leave it aht.