I agree that it is a fresh spin on the original series. Sometimes the spin makes the "Law and Order: UK" episode better than the original but one episode that I felt the original was better than the "U.K." episode was "Bitter Fruit" in the U.S. or "Hidden" in the U.K. I felt that the original was more powerful in showing a nasty custody battle. The one "U.K." episode that I felt was better than the original was "Shaken". The original episode "Homesick" I felt was not one of Law and Order's best.

I just finishedwatching the episode Paternal and i kept waiting to see the UK spin on it. Got all the way to the end and the spin never happened! Except i think in the u.s version they didn't arrest the mother at the end. It was a little disappointing that they've filmed several sessions of it by now and occasionally the storylines still aren't different enough to distinguish them. Although i stand by my original comment, i can understand why others complain
neat . . . sweet . . . petite

I"m with TeOfLeDiKi. The eps are the same, but still somewhat different. For the original L&O, having someone show up with a gun was not all that odd even if they didn't have a permit. It makes for something different in the UK. Same goes for the what may be called police brutality and the police lying to suspects during interrogation. I rarely see any of that on L&O: UK.
For the ep on the starving the grandmother, I was thinking the religious part of it came out a whole lot earlier than when the granddaughter was on the witness stand.
And since the original eps are so old now, it's sometimes at least 15 minutes into the ep before I realize which one is it, which I like.

But each revised episode does have some uniqueness to it, kvanstyn. For instance, I just finished watching the episode about suicide-by-train, and the second half of it was completely different from the American version. British TV shows have much shorter seasons (although over there they call the seasons "series," which is odd to American ears) - sometimes their "series" only last 4 or 5 episodes. I have no idea how the British system works, but apparently, L&O:UK has had eight "series" consisting of about 6 episodes each over the past three years.
The original mothership L&O produced 456 episodes, plus a movie, plus three U.S. spinoffs. I was also a bit put-off during the opening moments of the episode I mentioned above, and my first response was, hmm, they're still recycling old scripts, are they? But the way the stories are told, plus the sensibilities of the MIU (which I only just now learned means Murder Investigation Unit, what we in the States call 'homicide') officers, the fact that the cops don't carry guns and that authorizing a tactical mission with weapons is a very big deal over there - it all makes it interesting for me. Some of the very early episodes were pretty much exactly the same as the U.S. originals, except for some cultural differences, but even though they're still borrowing the stories, they are definitely putting more of their own spin on them.
neat . . . sweet . . . petite

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I was really, really disappointed to learn that the UK episodes are almost repeats of the USA Law & Order series. Yes, I too wish the storylines were original, because I've seen ALL of the USA series.

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You mean from the original Law and order?
I notice similar episodes too, but they're different still.
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