TELEVISION / BRIEFING: It's a fair pair of cops

NOT content with accounting for most of the drama on television, detectives are now making inroads into sitcoms. THE DETECTIVES (8pm BBC1) stars Jasper Carrott and Robert Powell as two incompetent inspectors. The first episode, 'What the Butler Saw', features all the standard-issue elements of detective drama - thunder and lightning, a country house hotel, a Psycho-style murder in the shower, and a libraryful of suspects. The script, by Steve Knight and Mike Whitehill, offers the odd amusing one-liner. Powell accosts a suspect: 'Murder - ugly word, isn't it?' 'Here's another ugly word - Bon Jovi,' adds Carrott, helpfully. George Sewell, reprising his role in Special Branch, turns in a nice cameo as the no-nonsense boss, and Jerry Hall vamps it up as a hotel guest. But, on this evidence, was it really worth expanding a thin sketch from Canned Carrott into six half-hours?

Detective drama played (relatively) straight fares better this evening - in the trustworthy shape of SHERLOCK HOLMES (8pm ITV). In the first of two feature-length cases, our man with the violin (the flamboyant Jeremy Brett) investigates 'The Last Vampyre' (based on Conan Doyle's 'The Sussex Vampire'). Watch for Roy Marsden, better known as that other popular telly 'tec, Commander Adam Dalgleish. JAMES RAMPTON

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