I did not expect this to be anywhere as good as it turned out to be. I mean, who wants to see a murder mystery where the main characters break out into song every 30 minutes or so? Yes, they actually do sing in their own voices over recordings you will recognize.
The songs are a perfect fit to the story, moving it along and providing a lot of context. My personal favorite was the head to head between David Morrissey and David Tennant, both singing "These Boots Are Made For Walking."
Sarah Parish has always been a personal favorite, starting with "Cutting It" and doing a killer job as a lawyer in the short lived series "Trust". David Morrissey did a fantastic job. You'd swear he is a total sleaze in the beginning of the series, but by the end, your opinion will probably change. Likewise, David Tennant (the new Dr Who) seems to be the perfect cop, but is he really?
PS - If you saw this on BBC America, you missed about 10 minutes out of every episode. Several songs were cut, as were a lot of key scenes that made the story much easier to follow, and also developed some of the the characters much further. Especially Hallworth, the character played by David Bradley who was protesting the conversion of the arcade into a casino.
Do yourself a favor - get a multi-region DVD player, and order the DVD from the UK.