I read that, too-it was a joint venture of BBC and an American company, which is guaranteed to drive the cost way out of reason-Brit production companies don’t spend like that-for one thing, their TV actors don’t get paid like the ones here-according to my Brit neighbor-a lot of them even have other jobs when they don’t have an acting gig.
The BBC is a spendaholic. They will send many times the number of crew to get a story and stay in posh hotels overseas.
We like to watch the Brit series too on Netflix because the acting is good and the writing for them is much better and you are correct. Many actors over there do not get paid the same high wages as they do here.
Plus over there they don’t have the women looking like they are ready for a cocktail dinner first thing in the morning.
We just finished watching Broadchurch which had none of the homosexuality, and was more of a family crime who did it.