Why Silent Witness is underrated and better than 'CSI' or 'NCIS'

I grew up on a variety of police procedural dramas, from being allowed to stay up and watch ‘The Bill’ as a child to enjoying various episodes of ‘NCIS’, ‘Criminal Minds’ and, of course, ‘CSI.’ However I have recently decided that my favourite might perhaps be ‘Silent Witness’, BBC’s longstanding forensics drama that in my honest opinion is fairly underrated as a show.

You may be sat at home thinking to yourself how can a series that is currently in the middle of its twentieth season be considered underrated. It’s purely because I very rarely see anyone talking about it, it certainly doesn’t seem to be as popular as similar shows such as ‘CSI’, or ‘Criminal Minds’ and it definitely hasn’t’ got anywhere near the dizzying heights of ‘Broadchurch’ in its extensive time on our televisions.

However I truly believe that we should be regarding Silent Witness as one of the finest examples of British television. I mean the sheer fact it’s been renewed for twenty seasons should be an indicator as to the overall quality, it’s a tightly produced, slickly executed thoughtful drama with an always mood-building musical score, in short its production elements are pretty damn good.

On top of that ‘Silent Witness’ takes advantage of a balanced and diverse team helmed by the relentlessly reliable and endearing Emilia Fox as Nikki Alexander, and a ridiculously rich tapestry of some of the finest British actors and actresses guest starring as detectives, killers and anything else in-between.

‘Silent Witness’ is also a show that has something to say, in its episodic crime narratives it tackles some of the more prescient and important social issues that are prevalent in society and brings them to the attention of its viewers in unique ways, just this season we’ve had two episodes excellently moulded around immigration and the school shooting storyline a few seasons ago stands as one of my all-time favourites.

The structure of the series is also unique in creating truly thought provoking storylines with a ton of character development and depth. That’s because the show gives each individual story two hour long episodes, basically giving us a gripping and compelling crime drama movie every two weeks. Whilst still also remaining focussed on the central characters and their journeys.

It’s not as flashy or glamorous like ‘CSI’ or ‘Criminal Minds’ but displays the typically British grittiness and realism that these kind of cases should be approached with none of the witty puns and ridiculous corpse jokes, although there are spatterings of humour interjected throughout the show approaches murder with a proper seriousness and a whole lot of desperate warmth and heart as these characters do their absolute best to help people.

So, if you’ve been on the fence about whether or not to invest in Silent Witness given that it doesn’t get as much fanfare as others in the genre I’m hoping that you are finally convinced to take the plunge and delve into the murky world of Dr Nikki Alexander and the sheer multitude of murders her and her British team of forensics experts have to contend with.