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I realise the films of Guy Ritchie are not everyone's cup of tea, but I happen to like them and his style a lot. Yes, he has quite a narrow canvas but what he does, he does very well indeed and then some. That at least is my opinion.

You come to realise quite how adept Mr Ritchie is as a writer, director and producer when you come across what, to adopt the idiom of Snatch, the TV series and its world, is a cheap knock-off.

Well, as film-making is not exactly cheap, I stress I am using the word metaphorically.

But Snatch, the TV series is a very down-market knock-off. It and Snatch, the Ritchie film and its stablemates, are just not in the same league.

Ritchie's (shall I risk it, 'oeuvre' - no, I shan't, I'll go with 'films) is top-of-the-table Premier League stuff. Alex de Rakoff's series is bottom of League One regulation battle stuff.

I don't doubt many enjoy it, simply because it is the kind of lov'abl Cockney rong 'uns caper they like. But there are now quite a few of them and it does not stand out from the crowd for one second.

De Rakoff (I wonder if that name is real and he isn't, in fact, Kevin Perks from Rotherham?) does not have any of Ritchie's gifts and, as he does here, simply trying to ape Ritchie's trademark camera work, intricate, well-crafted) storylines, imaginative direction and above all wit just does't cut it. It simply doesn't work for more than five minutes once you realise there's very little else.

Snatch, the TV series, is very thin gruel indeed and pales quickly. Yes, the rip-off camera work and makes it look like Ritchie, but the attempt at intricate plotting is plain silly. That's were the wit comes in: 'wit' is far broader than just 'funny', and Ritchie has wit in speed in spades. De Rakoff does not have it at all.

Actually, there was a previous, quite similar, series spin-off from one of Ritchie's films, The Gentleman. That actually had Ritchie's input in some ways, and it showed, though it wasn't really a patch on the original film.

Here Ritchie has not input at all, and that shows, too. As I say, if you care to settle for a knock-off, go for this by all means. But it's still a cheap knock-off and did very little for me.

Sigh.

Season one of The Recruit was different and a refreshing change: the central conceit of a lawyer who didn't want to get bogged down in and a grey-life legal office so he goes to work - still as a lawyer - for the CIA was a good one.

It panned out really well. The 'plot' got ever more convoluted but held together and evolved in a way that was 'realistic', or at least 'realistic' in on its own TV streaming terms.

Best of all running through it all was a seam of witty dry humour which leavened all the 'action'. Then there was also action, but that, too, was somehow all of a piece. I even recommended it to friends as 'a bit different'. Then came season two and it all changed, and not for the better. I just hope those friends who tuned into season two on my recommendation will forgive me.

Perhaps the producers were not confident they would get a second season and so did not draft an outline for one. But whatever the reason, season two is essentially just TV streaming schlock pretty much like all the other TV streaming schlock we can tune into any day of the week.

Season two is entertaining enough but trudges through very familiar ground, in every respect. And it isn't a patch on season one. The witty dry humour has been replaced by the usual heavy-handed American kind of humour which tends only to be funny if you are 17 or need stuff to be spelled out.

In fact, there's a lot of spelling out going on and it makes the dialogue often wooden and insulting: in a few lines two characters will bring the slowest of us up to speed with an outline of what has happened so far. Yes, it can get that bad.

So there you have it. If you liked season one, give season two a miss. If you didn't see season one, give it a whirl, then still give season two a miss. It's as though they are from different series.

In the grand old world of streaming drama there are multiple audiences and so multiple standards, multiple expectations, multiple production values - well, I don't really have to go on. And what's 'brilliant, fantastic, amazing' for one audience might not be quite as 'brilliant, fantastic, amazing' for another.

But it takes all sorts and so there are all kinds of shows for specific audiences. Departure's MO is to cram as many disparate storylines into the whole shooting match so that there might be something for everyone. Certainly, they are expected to gell in the end, but quite how honest the gelling is will not be a given.

Thus in addition to central 'mystery' of a plane that disappears without trace, we have - in no particular order - a crash investigator who is naturally the best at which she and is roped in to help solve the mystery but against her will because of some past tragedy, a dodgy bi-sexual male pilot leading a double life with a wife in London and husband in Dublin, MI5 getting involved, a multi-billion pound deal hanging on the aircraft what has just gone missing performing well, the superlatively good investigator having problems with her teenage son and a dodgy Russian oligarch. Maybe there is more but I gave up counting.

This smorgasbord of 'themes' or 'plots' or whatever you want to call them is stitched together with the kind of pragmatic, functional and uninspiring dialogue along the lines of 'this is X, the very best at what he / she / it does in the world' and that will be one piece of 'characterisation' taken care of. You want something more subtle? Well, off with you to another drama!

Another very useful ploy used in this kind of series is the perpetual 'exciting' musical score which is first cousin to elevator muzak what underlyes the 'action' non-stop to convey to 'the viewer' that 'this is exciting stuff' just in case the viewer is not yet convinced.

OK, I'm now sounding like a poncey snob and perhaps I am one. But if from what I have described so far this is your bag, go for it. It is certainly no worse than 150 other such dramas doing the rounds of the streaming networks.

If, on the other hand, you are disinclined to sit through the drama equivalent of styrofoam, don't bother and read a book, be nice to the kids or find some other way to pass the time. This will not be for you. If it is, you're welcome to it. It wasn't for me.

Overall, streaming drama by numbers (and not very high ones at that).