Series tv v episodic TV and one missed opportunity

On a friend's recommendation watched the first two episodes of Longmire and overall think, OK, it's good if you like police procedurals but it doesn't rise to the level of great or even very good series-TV, and here's why. It seems in Longmire that in each episode the eponymous Wyoming sheriff solves a case. A had a modicum of interest for a few reasons - the Wyoming empty landscape and scruffy small-town life was appealing and credible and unusual for a TV setting, esp for a police-like drama (usually in NYC, LA, Miami, et al). The main character has a certain gruff, laconic style not typical of most TV, and he's offset by his chatty assistant sheriff, Vic, better known to me as Starbuck from Battlestar. All that's a plus. But to make a great series there has to be an ongoing story line and in fact the ongoing story line has to predominate - so that we really want to know what happens to these characters, how they grow and develop and interrelate over time: e.g., Mad Men (each episode had a commercial "sell" but the plot of the episode was always subordinate to the plot of the series), or, closer in style to Longmire, the overlooked TV series The Shield - each of the many episodes involved solving some kind of case before the detectives but we mainly were interested in the developing characters, their tensions, the side-stepping the law and protocol. There's almost none of that in Longmire - a few hints about a campaign for reelection as sheriff, some tepid stuff about the secret relationship between L's daughter and his election rival and subordinate - but these are very minor elements at least through 3 episodes. The plot of each episode benefits from the unusual setting - some promising themes about tensions between U.S. and Indian law enforcement, though this has not been picked up after the initial/pilot episode - but overall the plots fall victim to the bane of many procedural shows: the crimes are too weird and exotic to be believable week after week in a small town (compare Fargo, which takes just one complex crime across the whole season, or similarly A Killing) and the solution to the crimes is so engineered and improbably - every clue falls into place, every suspect fesses up eventually - that we just don't feel there's authenticity here. And you've got one of the most appealing of TV actresses here - Katee Sackhoff aka Starbuck - and you can't give her a back story or more than a sexy sidekick role? Serious missed opportunity there, and everywhere.