Dear TV lovers,
Are you getting a little tired of primetime’s never-ending parade of cops and doctors? Don’t get me wrong, I like my share of these shows too. But let’s take a look at the line-ups of the four big networks.
All falling under the umbrella of police (special agent, whatever) procedurals, we have at least three multi-show franchises:
Law & Order (NBC)
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
CSI (CBS)
CSI: New York
CSI: Miami
Cold Case (though not a “CSI” show per se, it apparently takes place in the same universe)
NCIS (CBS)
NCIS: Los Angeles
Then we have the “odd couple” variants:
Bones (Fox) (macho FBI agent + awkward forensic anthropologist/novelist)
Castle (ABC) (hard-ass detective + charming mystery novelist)
The Mentalist (CBS) (taciturn special agent + smooth ex-fake psychic)
But wait, there’s more! In addition to carrying the CSI and NCIS franchises and The Mentalist, CBS has Criminal Minds, NUMB3RS and Flashpoint (which, BTW, co-stars Amy Jo Johnson, a.k.a. the original Pink Ranger), although these aren’t cut from quite the same cloth as all the others. Not that there’s anything wrong with police procedurals. I’m fond of the odd couple ones myself. It’s just, holy crap, there’s a lot of them. Again, this is just on the major networks. There are more (and more varied) cop/crime shows on cable, including Law & Order: Criminal Intent on USA.
And then we have the medical dramas/soaps: Fox’s House, ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and spin-off Private Practice, and NBC’s Mercy. (Sitting in NBC limbo is the paramedic show Trauma, which comes back on the air March 8 to finish its first season, but probably won’t get a second.) CBS isn’t currently onboard this wagon—small wonder, given its obsession with the procedural genre—but it’s premiering Miami Medical in April.
Though the doctors and nurses on TV are outnumbered by the cops and lab techs, House and the Grey’s shows are also among the highest-profile on their respective networks. Not the highest profile, possibly; Fox has 24 and ABC has, y’know, Lost. But still. Hospital shows fly pretty high over the radar, maybe because ER ran for so long (insert joke about NBC’s lost glory days here) and had George Clooney for its first five years.
There’s also the theory that most people find cop and medical shows easy to relate to, having had experiences with crime and/or hospitals. Because the episodes are generally self-contained, they’re also more accessible to new/casual viewers than crazy phenomena like Lost.
But I have to wonder what this says about creativity and all that good stuff. Especially over at CBS. Did they really need another procedural? I’ve seen a couple of episodes of NCIS: LA. It’s pretty okay, and the undercover thing is kind of a cool twist, but at the end of the day you still have those familiar crime scene investigations, and interrogations, and confessions and “aha!” moments. I have nothing against formulas/templates in general, which seem necessary for episodic TV. But really, of all the possibilities to fill the Tuesday 9 p.m. time slot, this was their best option? (By the way, NCIS is itself a spin-off, though its progenitor, JAG, was a pretty different sort of show. Also, Criminal Minds has a spin-off of its own in the works, starring Forrest Whitaker and Beau Garrett.)
And isn’t it at least a little creepy that TV audiences are apparently so fond of murder stories?
Maybe that’s unfair. Maybe the reason for the popularity of these shows is that audiences find some kind of reassurance in the portrayals of law enforcement and medical professionals, who are after all pillars of society. Maybe it’s not the laundry list of murders that so captivates TV viewers, but the idea that these murders are solved, and that thereby, more are theoretically prevented. Maybe it’s not the horrific illnesses and injuries that keep us coming back every week, but the idea that they are, for the most part, healed.
Who wouldn’t want to think that no matter how crazy the world gets, we are looked after by Olivia Bensons and Elliot Stablers, Lisa Cuddys and James Wilsons (and Allison Camerons, damn it), Jethro Gibbses and Seeley Booths, Meredith Greys and Addison Montgomerys? Okay, so maybe we hope our surgeons don’t actually have that much baggage, but you know what I mean. These characters put faces on real-world strangers who face death, danger and despair head-on when most of the rest of us look or run away, and who do their best to clean up the messes made by our bad luck and bad decisions and bad apples, and who do it in the face of institutional obstructions and their own personal problems.
I’m not sure that’s why I watch any of these shows, though. Well, maybe it is and I’m just not conscious of it. But in most cases, I think I’m more interested in the characters themselves than in what they represent. And I think you can get fun and/or compelling characters in just about any setting/profession.
For example, I like Bones not primarily for the crime-solving but because it has a quirky cast. For my money, brilliant-but-awkward forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) is one of the most entertaining women on TV: frighteningly honest, ruthlessly rational, hopelessly literal-minded, and generally bad with people who aren’t trying to get in her pants (granted, there are lots of those), but trying, with endearing clumsiness, to change. She has a perfect foil in FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz): macho, charismatic, intuitive, wise-cracky, and certifiably badass (ex-Army Ranger sniper/boxer/knife-thrower), but intensely uncomfortable discussing personal problems and easily embarrassed about all kinds of things. My favorite among the supporting characters is young FBI psychoanalyst Lance Sweets (John Francis Daley), who has a Sophisticated as Hell thing going on. Admittedly, I’m not really sure in what other context these characters could work together on a daily basis, but my favorite moments on the show are almost never related to the case of the week. I stick around for the therapy sessions that Brennan and Booth have to attend in Sweets’ office, and other little conversation scenes.
I could say similar things about Castle and The Mentalist, and on the medical drama side, House and Mercy.
(Tangent: it’s a real shame that Castle and Bones are on different networks, because a crossover with those odd couples, both of which feature former Joss Whedon leading men, would be pure awesome.)
How about you? Do you love cop and/or doctor shows? Hate ‘em? Why? And why do you think the landscape of TV is what it is? Do you think it’ll change any time soon? And what sorts of shows would you like to see more of?
New Comments