Crime is everywhere on the television screen. It is seen at its weakest in the still-riveting “Judge Judy,” and at its strongest in what I call The Triad: “The Sopranos,” “The Wire” and “Breaking Bad.” These three shows are far and away the most critically acclaimed dramas of all time, each of them boldly defining what compelling television should be. The series are different in many ways; “Breaking Bad” is an intense, protagonist-driven piece whereas “The Wire” is ensemble driven and breaks up its seasons into distinctive parts. What they share is the intensity brought by breaking the law and the subsequent chase for enforcement that follows.
The biggest thing that crime lends to a narrative is that it is a natural motor for drama. Let’s take FX’s newest anthology series “American Crime Story.” The first season is a miniseries dubbed “The People v. OJ Simpson.” At first glance it may seem, as it did to my roommates and me, that knowing the results of a trial would eliminate the stakes of a show altogether. This proves not to be the case, as “OJ Simpson” is an impossibly gripping thrill ride that takes real-to-life twists and unfolds them before an audience’s eyes. Not only is the viewer invested in the outcome of the trial, but the characters are too. They feel the intensity, and everyone is pressured into making power plays and rash decisions (David Schwimmer aside, who only manages to achieve the emotional range of a sad golden retriever). Crime raises the stakes in our real world, so it’s only natural that it would extend into the filmic one.
Above all of these other deep-diving and masterfully written shows sits the king of primetime: the crime procedural. Existing in many forms for many decades, this is easily the most watched genre on television (discounting the broad umbrella of “comedy”). Shows like “NCIS” and “Bones” dominate slots on major networks. The best of them possess the quality of every good show. They’re tightly written with a strong focus on character stemming down from a set of established protagonists, and they reward the repeated viewer while simultaneously inviting new ones into their world. In fact, many of these procedurals do that last part much better than say, “Breaking Bad,” because they work in the format of episodic crime
Look at “NCIS,” which is far and away my mother’s favorite show. She likes it because even when it’s a rerun, she doesn’t remember how the plot turned out from the last time, so she can still enjoy it. She can still enjoy these episodes out of order and isolated because unless it’s a special two-part cliffhanger episode, the entire crime is introduced and resolved in the same episode. What my mom is really going back for is the characters, with whom she is very familiar. It’s how shows like this can stay on the air so long; their very nature is individualized episodes that, while more enjoyable when viewed all together, are entirely self-contained. Besides crime, the only other genre with this privilege is medical drama, and what are doctors if not health cops?
In addition to everything else, crime shows are flexible. A show about a young vigilante superhero taking justice into his own hands and a true-to-life showing of Pablo Escobar’s drug exploits both use crime at their axis to create sides and action. Even the most common form of crime television, the “law enforcement unit” show, can take on hundreds of faces: a cerebral look at serial killers or an ensemble comedy starring Andy Samberg. What “Arrow,” “Narcos,” “Criminal Minds” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” all share is that their characters are on either side of the law, and sometimes that’s all you need.