Some questions for regular/long time viewers

Having missed them when they were first aired I have just started watching this series for the first time on the Drama channel. I am quite impressed so far (I wish I could be as rude as Dalziel and get away with it) and like the stories but have a few questions:

Are the broadcasts on Drama edited? I ask because some plot details don't quite make sense. For example in Under world, the fight sequence in the mine at the end seems to be over very quickly and it isn't obvious whether the central character Colin (Joe Duttine) is dead or alive at the end. It's all wrapped up very quickly and it isn't even obvious whether Pascoe heard the murderers confession or not.

And how closely is the series based on the books? I ask because in all the reviews and write ups I had seen about the series a great deal is made of the conflict and differences between Dalziel his new sergeant but in the first episode you'd hardly know this was the first time they worked together. Or again was the episode edited with crucial scenes missing?

Also the geography doesn't add up. Maybe it works better in the books (which I know were in some case written several years apart) but in one episode when Pascoe and Ellie are married they live in a small cottage in the country where a girl went missing. In an earlier episode they live in a terraced house in a town setting and in the episode Under World they live in a larger detached house. I know they can have moved house but in all cases they are known as locals by everyone they come into contact with no matter who they are or where they are, and the setting seems to vary from village to town which in theory is the same town the police station is in. And yet in Under World the miner's wife critcises Ellie saying that everyone knows who she is but Colin doesn't know who she is and is shocked when he finds out she's married to a policeman.

Lastly Drama seems to be missing out some episodes, eg S2Ep3 Deadheads. Does anyone know why this is?