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Why Are Police Procedural Shows So Popular?
I’m not a big fan of police procedural shows. I barely managed to make it through the first season of NCIS without dying of boredom. Despite attempting to spin a new angle on police procedurals, NCIS fell into the same trap as Criminal Minds, Law & Order, Blue Bloods, and all their variations. The pattern of these shows is always the same:
- You’ve got a large cast of law-enforcement — usually homicide detectives — working in a big city like LA or NYC. Cliche characters include the bad boy detective who doesn’t play by the rules (but still manages to solve the case), the strong female officer looking to prove herself, and the quirky computer tech full of endless jokes and bubbly energy.
- Each week, our saintly detectives trudge through homicide investigations far more interesting than anything real-life law enforcement could expect to see. Terrorist attacks and serial killers are just another Monday.
- The first person they suspect as the killer will almost always be innocent. (After all, if they found the murderer right away, they wouldn’t be able to draw the episode out for 42 minutes.)
- Once they sort through a few dead-end leads, some surprise smoking gun will appear out of thin air and name the killer without a shred of doubt.
