Waking the Dead inside

Last night's concluding scene of Waking the Dead highlighted the extraordinary differences between US crime dramas and our dreary UK versions. At the conclusion of each CSI Miami or New York come to that,  we see David Caruso (our household ginger hero), comforting a child or holding a victim in the creepiest way humanly possible, but nevertheless, oozing empathy. Even New York hard ass CSI chief Gary Sneezy (Sinise), as my mother calls him, turns on the sympathy as the truth is finally revealed.

Unlike Detective Inspector Boyd who at the end of Waking the Dead looked over at the two recently orphaned kids, who'd been subject to years of abuse from a delusional and murderous mother. It's not Boyd's style to hug and tell everyone it's gonna be OK, but was the look that said, "Here's looking forward to a lifetime of mental health damage and regret, best get on with it eh kids?" With that he got in his car and pissed off. End of. Charming.

In the UK, we rarely see silver linings in our murder and crime drama, or should I say when we do it becomes New Tricks, so that probably isn't a bad thing come to think of it.Which brings me to that idiot who claimed today that Midsomer Murders lacked ethnic minorities because it wouldn't work. I live down the road from Slough and personally I'd love to see John Nettles, poking round in disused garages at the corpses of homeless Polish tramps. We ignore non-British cultures at our peril and we're so damn good at it - Midsomer Murders isn't the only guilty show - see if you can stomach Doc Holiday. Britain is possibly one of the most multi-cultural countries in the world, like it or not. We don't have to be like Boyd, be as angry as Boyd, eat like Boyd or just get in our cars and drive away. If we in the UK were more open to more cultures, even the ones on our doorsteps, perhaps we might even wake up a little of what's dead inside them.