Gory Intro to Banks and Cabbot

Talk about gore. DCI Banks, author Peter Robinson's own adaptation of his crime novels, was on Buffalo's WNED-TV tonight and I can't recall another British police series splashing the blood quite so much. Stephen Tompkinson as Banks and Andrea Lowe as his stroppy (as the British say) sidekick Det. Sgt. Annie Cabbot seemed comfortable enough in their respective roles, although I thought Banks was made to blow his stack once or twice too often. Cabbot, unfortunately, was a little too much the terrier bent on showing the farmer what it could do. And without giving anything away, I thought the ending, while dramatic, didn't ring true psychologically. A further criticism might be the program's lack of humour. Even in the grimmest of British crime drama - say Cracker or Dalziel and Pascoe - there's always a bleak joke or two. Perhaps Robinson, a long-time Hogtown resident, will lighten up a bit with his other scripts. I know he can. In one of his books he has some fun with the name Don Cherry.