We used to have such a pool of detectives that no character on TV could so much as eat an unfair share of the sandwiches without David Jason or John Thaw turning up to assert the pale, wan light of tabloid morality.

Sometimes these ordinary detectives, with real paunches, were so fascinating to us, the majority of camera shots merely switched from themselves to their sidekick’s faces, in conversations about bank statements.

Now it appears they are dying off and we have called in the mentalised, the super-powered, the supernaturaled, and the accidentally time travelling. It is no longer enough to flip open a notebook and start being cynical over a pint of mild.

Vampires are apparently ideal crime fighters. Perhaps because most criminals are knicking stuff to feed their habit and don't usually rise before sunset. Its the criminal masterminds that commit stuff during the day you have to worry about. Though such old fashioned conventions as Vampires not being able to go to the shops when they're open, have been exterminated from television ever since Doctor Who reappeared, with Daleks that can get up the stairs. (My Grandad sounds and looks exactly like Stavros when he's in his stairlift getting caught short, so I know what I am talking about).

Then there's the guys who don't have superpowers but who's psychological profiling abilities are possessed of such genius, it amounts to the same thing:

"I knew you'd switched wills when I saw you flick a long nose hair out the way of the rest of your face..."

The only way to avoid arrest in their presence is to remain motionless in time and space but then the time travelling plods are no doubt waiting to intervene in the shadows of the continuum.

These paths of man and superman are oft crossed along the way by lesser skills such as black belts in stuff. Given this is run of the mill nowadays and given that Freeview channels, are endlessly repeating badged crusaders, I am surprised we are not running out of criminals as well.

Only the Bill seems to maintain the low energy chase scene around a mini-roundabout. This is what real policing is all about: out of breath, fat racists pulling out an asthma inhaler in a deserted car park on a wet afternoon.