Agreed - there was warp speed involved in some of those trial situations. Police procedurals share the same problem. But all things being equal, the level of writing and acting in that program rose above most of them that I was aware of.

I don't watch NBC or ABC much. PBS I used to watch a lot more - many of the mysteries seem to be manufactured for an American audience, or the UK audience is more lightweight than it used to be. Some of them are still charming, others are ho-hum, and it used to be that just about anything that came across PBS was excellent. (FOX, as objectionable as their news wing is, does have some good entertainment - I wish they'd extended Backstrom after the first 13 episodes.)