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In my humble, this was one of the best pieces of television documentary ever made.

The ship's crew could not have been more interesting if this had been written as a feature film.

There could not be a better film about what it means to serve in a modern navy.

And the Royal Navy wrote the book about navies. It is good to see that they can still do it.

First rate, in every respect.

It should also be said that the musical score for this series was masterful.

And I hope that all the officers and crew went on to have brilliant careers, especially Capt. Rapp and Leading Seaman Mickey.

It is mildly disturbing to look through the viewer's comments that have, so far, been submitted about this series.

Admittedly, this series is neither "The West Wing"or "Star Trek" -- if those are your touchstones.

But it is good,well-crafted and imaginative television, if you appreciate non- comedies that don't take themselves all that seriously.

But the puerility of many of the comments that are available on the site, worries me not a little. Of course, you can be some sort of purist and poke fun at the things that are trying to entertain you, but if all of us who might qualify for the label "smarty pants" drive out what we like because we feel that it is not quite as good as it might be, the what are we left with? "The Maury Povitch Show"?

Let us get out of the school yard, the gossip and the trendier than thou attitudes. God help us, television is part of our lives, for better or worse. Let us at least encourage and applaud the better-- e.g. Eureka -- and hope that if we can establish a voice in these things-- a sensible voice-- the better will get better.

Don't let us make our notions of the perfect any enemy to the very good.

Over the years, we have seen many police or law enforcement dramas, most of which conformed to fairly limited patterns-- tough-cop, smart-cop, methodical- cop and so on.

This relatively new series has brought real imagination, and humanity, to this time-honored "genre" (please forgive my French.)

It need hardly be said that this series presents, consistently, well-constructed mysteries, but even on the level of plotting, this is above average work.

What most makes this programme worthy of success is the construction of the relationships between the characters. We are used to seeing a "team" of law enforcement officers, but this is the only series I can think of in which a major point of focus is upon the relationship between two of the principal characters and their father.

On a larger scale, this show fascinates us with the interaction between police work and higher mathematics and physics.

All of the characters are interesting -- that is to say, they make us care about them-- and, to return to the idea of imagination making for good television, the burgeoning relationship between "Larry" and "Megan" gives hope to us all-- all men at least.

Anyone who watched the early seasons of "The West Wing" will recognize in this series the talents of Aaron Sorkin, Mr Schlamme (may he forgive me if I have misspelled his name) and their associates.

For my money their work is the "touchstone" when it comes to television.

The writing is, of course, in a class of its own.

The casting-- and therefore the acting-- is brilliant: Mr Perry and Mr Whitfield, along with Mr Busfield ... well it is a pleasure simply to watch them practise their craft. The self-indulgent thought that Janel Moloney could be added to the cast with advantage cannot be resisted.

I particularly admired the recent episode featuring Eli Wallach. Too few television series-- and films for that matter-- have the guts to go out onto limbs:limbs like the audience's knowledge of history.

I very much hope that this programme will be given a chance to prosper and to take the kind of risks that "The West Wing" took. Often, television that challenges us does remarkably well, in the long run.

This programme is not as good as it was when Miss Sophia Milos was part of the cast. Even when she was a regular cast member, the writers seemed unable to to give much scope to her talents. It was never apparent, for example, that the writers were aware that she is an extremely talented comedian.

The series does have a fine cast at the moment-- Miss Proctor in particular-- but it would benefit greatly by the return of Miss Milos in a much expanded role.

It might also be said that the series would be enriched if there was m ore in the way of "chemistry" between the characters. I know that this sort of thing is well-understood in the industry, but I would draw attention to the fact that many of us sat through all those years of "The X Files" -- to mention just one series of many-- waiting to see what, if anything was going to develop between the two main characters. A certain amount of this kind of thing always helps to sustain interest. When Miss Milos left ...

What makes this programme excellent is that it allows us to watch people who are good at what they do. We enjoy the company of characters who are good at what they do; actors who are good at bringing those characters to life; writers, directors, casting producers, editors, music supervisors who are all good at what they do.

Television -- both drama and comedy-- is always better when it is built on, around , by and about people who are good at what they do.

These same observations were true about the programme "JAG", which was consistently excellent for the same reasons. Let us hope that more programming will be based on this simple principle: let us watch the work of people who are good at what they do.