For a few minutes today, I wanted to cause someone serious pain. An arrangement that seemed locked down was turned over by someone who had no intention of honouring their initial commitment. Not that he told me directly: instead the news was relayed by a young woman working for him. She was blameless, he…I imagined holding him by the throat, squeezing until his eyes bulged. Only, I’m not cut out for that kind of thing, and it helps if you’re doing that sort of stuff to have dependable back-up.

Still, while it lasted, that vengeful fantasy was an enjoyable one. And that explains some of the appeal of Sons of Anarchy, which follows the ins and outs of a gang of outlaw bikers. Developed by Kurt Sutter, a writer very much associated with The Shield, one of my all time favourite shows, the series cranks his previous one’s fascination with machismo and violence up a further notch.

As with The Shield, there’s moral ambiguity here. Where the police drama featured bad cops, this biker show has good outlaws. Or at any rate confused ones. At the heart of it all is Jax Teller, a second generation biker unaware that the club’s current president is his real father. The man he called dad is dead, and Jax comes across the manuscript he wrote outlining his vision for their two-wheeler society. It’s a utopian sixties vision that’s a far cry from the club’s present day reality of gun running and drugs,and Jax has ideas about taking the gang into a future less reliant on crime.

That dream doesn’t go down brilliantly with the club boss, Sam Crow, or Jax’s mum, the Lady Macbeth of the scenario. All of which bodes well for plenty of two-fisted action and intrigue as the series develops. Matters are interestingly complicated by Jax’s ex wife, who is injecting drugs while she’s pregnant, and whose life Jax is still very much involved with. There’s also inter-gang politics to contend with, the Sons of Anarchy being ripped off a bunch of weapons they’d acquired for a black gang, who want delivery of same to protect their drug interests. That in turn leads the Sons to take on the Mayans, a Latino gang who they’ve kept their distance from up until now.

All of which makes for quite the powder keg of a pilot episode. It doesn’t have the visceral intensity or shock ending that The Shield’s opener had, or a character quite as memorable as Vic Mackey to hold your interest, but that’s fine: this is a different show with its own identity to develop. I’ll be following its progress with interest, if only because violence is best experienced vicariously rather than delivered to actual people, however much they merit it.

Off and on, I’ve been tempted to develpo a series based on a bike gang I met, Soldier Blue, whose members were all former military men. The gang seemed to fulfil a similar function in their lives as the army did, giving them structure and the company of similarly motivated comrades. But there’s something about America as a setting that works better for such characters, for much the same reason that a song called Route 66 feels ‘right’ while one titled A66 doesn’t.

Sons of Anarchy is interesting too for having bad guys as its focus. OK, maybe that’s a cliche of its own in this post-Sopranos world, but it’s rich territory to explore, and I can’t help feeling that there’s a richer British take to be had on it than Hustle, which is fun, but ultimately froth. It’ll be interesting to see what new series the BBC develops given plans to axe some currently scheduled shows. Fingers crossed, they’ll bring us something with the potential of Sons of Anarchy.