The Bill meets SOKO Leipzig

In The Times, Stephen Armstrong reports on a partnershipe between ITV's The Bill and German police drama SOKO Leipzig to produce two episodes to be shown later this month.

This two-parter is jointly funded and filmed by ITV1 and the German state broadcaster ZDF; touchingly, both channels will show the same version. Online chatter from Bill lovers has expressed regret the show didn’t twin with CSI — which, as CSI costs roughly $3m (£1.5m) an hour to make, suggests the fanbase haven’t quite understood their show’s place in international television’s ecosystem. But you can understand their wishful thinking. CSI is a prolific master of the twinned show, crossbreeding with other locales in its franchise and also with the FBI agents of Without a Trace and the sleuths of Cold Case.