become addicted to a new show, new to me at least, Wire in the Blood on BBCAmerica on Monday night. the premise of the mystery/drama is the life and work of criminologist cum profiler Dr. Tony Hill as he investigates serial killings in the UK.

last night the show was the bloodiest ever I've seen it. but instead of wallowing in gore, like some US dramas, its uses of special effects are very controlled and necessary to stream the story along. the episode last night, about chance, how life, living, seems to have no discernible patterns at all and that luck appears to rule. a killer used high-powered rifles to shoot innocent people on the streets because he needed a sort of godlike control. the idea that a killer plies his deadly skills because he must need to assert control over life and destiny is not a new one, I know. but the twist was Hill could not do an adequate profile because the sniper did not exhibit any kind of patterning. which is terrifying shit indeed. no patterns, no way to control or stop the sniper. which is what we all fear, chaos, utter helplessness.

there was a moment last night of sudden, inexplicable, violence that made me jump. a tv drama with that kind of bump is a rare thing. only gripe about it is the commercials, because they tend to break the tension that is so necessary to drama with their loud music and fast editing. drives me bonkers really. perhaps I'll have to get the dvds. anyway, when I was a kid I thought cable tv was commercial-free, because you paid for it, see. but no, you pay for all of it, the programming and the commercials.

Wire in the Blood is satisfying storytelling, much more so than Lost, which I've watched but feels so much like a bad come-on. Too much trickery bullshit to sustain my interest, without any pay-off. Lost seems like a really bad, surrealist Gilligan's Island. not that that's bad but keep teasing and there better be one good fucking conclusion.