Four episodes, it says on the sleeve of Acorn Media's new Brit-crime DVD package Trial & Retribution: Set 1. So you think, okay, maybe four hours of so. That's manageable. I can do that.

Not so much. Turns out each of these "episodes" is more like an epic-length film -- we're talking around 200 minutes apiece. And these 13 hours are so damn addictive that you can't stop watching them.

Maybe it's fitting, then, that this series, which debuted on ITV in 1997, has been called the "British Law & Order," because who's not addicted to Law & Order? The analogy doesn't quite fit, though. While these stories do cover both the investigation of the crime and subsequent courtroom trial of the accused, they can also, by dint of their much longer run time, delve much deeper into the police procedural, which is absolutely catnip for crime geeks. If T&R lacks L&O's snappiness, it more than makes up for it with its cool, suave smarts: it assumes you can keep up with the forensics, the tricky psychology of police work, the shifting alibis of the suspects, and all the other myriad elements an actual police officer would have to keep straight in her head while trying to solve a crime.

It's not an accident. In the only bonus material in the set (which is a step up from Acorn's typical lack of extras), series creator Lynda La Plante -- this was her next project after the blockbuster cop show Prime Suspect -- says that she set out to create a show that would give viewers "some intellectual input," and that she hopes there's a "learning curve" for each episode, regarding pathology or forensics or some aspect of police work. What, asking audiences to think? Wonderful! (Actually, never mind Law & Order: T&R is Prime Suspect meets CSI.)

In each of these four stories, which aired between 1997 and 2000, crotchety DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) Mike Walker (David Hayman) and his smoothly unflappable sidekick DI Pat North (Kate Buffery) unravel a horrific crime -- the kidnapping of a small child; a prostitute's murder; a sinister stalking; a domestic homicide -- though nabbing the bad guy never comes easy. Some of the red-herring sidetracks we're led down are truly disturbing (one episode had me wondering whether a nine-year-old boy could have committed a terrible act), and the turns by guest stars such as Rhys Ifans, Richard E. Grant, and Iain Glen at their creepy best are downright nightmare-inducing.

Stylistically, too, T&R was ahead of its time: its occasional use of a split-screen, which was innovative for TV then (this was before 24!), allows us multiple views on the action when often many important things are happening at the same time. We can keep an eye on shifty gazes, for instance, during an interrogation, or watch a voyeur's face and get his menacing perspective at the same time. And while these early episodes of the series, which continues to this day in the U.K., were shot in the now old-fashioned squarish aspect-ratio TV used to sport, the split screens look especially good on a wide-screen TV.

The DVD: Oops, I lied. There is another pseudo extra on Disc 4: a text-only "Glossary" that contains general terms that apply to police investigations anywhere ("DNA," "Pathologist") and also IDs' agencies and roles ("Criminal Case Review Commission," "Solicitors and Barristers") that are unique to the British system. I generally scoff at the idea that text-only anything counts as bonus material, but I'll give this one a pass for its usefulness to American viewers.

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MaryAnn Johanson (email me)
film reviews and TV blogging at FlickFilosopher.com

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