By Isaac Linnen
You’ve either watched one seen someone watch one or seen an ad for it on a channel. Crime shows are ingrained in the modern TV climate, with most cable channels housing at least one. They each come with different pros and cons of the genre. I’ll be taking a look at three examples of the medium and how each one benefits the viewers.
The first show could be considered one of the progenitors of the modern formula, the original Law and Order. Law and Order (1990-2010) popularized the modern concept through intriguing cases and bitter court battles. The formula is separated into the “Law” and “Order” portions. First, you follow two detectives investigating a crime, usually a murder. As they track down clues and interrogate suspects, they usually find their real murderer. Once the suspect is caught, the Assistant District Attorney, or ADA, must prosecute the defendant. Depending on the outcome, the ending of the episode can be slightly uplifting or downright depressing. The show does well with this 50/50 structure for an episode. Though it was one of the first shows of its genre, it lacks a crucial part of many good shows, character connection. Your connection is not with the characters themselves, but with the cases that they get. Many of the murders are associated with common moral dilemmas that people like to discuss, whether they involve political motivation, or the belief of righteousness before God, each one makes the viewer think harder about the subject. This distracts from the development that a character gets, and even though time passes, and some events are connected, the characters hardly change. Though the spin off Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (1999-Present) helps to show their struggles and personal lives.
On the other side of the spectrum, The Blacklist (2013-Present) relies on overreaching plots and characters. After turning himself in to the FBI, high profile criminal Raymond Reddington gives the agency his blacklist, a list of dangerous criminals responsible for crime worldwide. His only condition is to exclusively work with agent Elizabeth Keen. The show, though following the case-by-case format laid out by Law and Order, is stretched out far more than the episodic nature of earlier crime shows. Events from earlier seasons still have affects on current seasons. The mystery of the show isn’t who the criminal is but is instead what the end goal for Remington is. This is what perpetuates nature of the show and what has kept it rolling. A downside to this type of storytelling is eventual inaccessibility. A new viewer can’t jump in and understand most of the story. At this point in the shows run, one would have to start at the beginning to understand the main story. This is a large loss for a crime show to have, due to the ability to watch any episode without context being a strength for the genre.
Criminal Minds (2005-2020) fixes this new issue by retaining the episodic nature of classic shows while also keeping the cast consistent and rarely changing. In Criminal Minds the viewer follows the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, or BAU, as they hunt down and try to stop serial killers across the country before they can strike again. This is what could be called the middle ground of the case by case and main plot driven extremes. The characters are distinct, and their stories are quite layered, but they never take away from the main plot of an episode themselves. The cases are each suspenseful and stressful as you watch and hope the killer doesn’t strike again. Criminal Minds uses horror tropes to pull the audience in a unique and quite terrifying way. The constant anxiety of seeing the team get so close to their perp, only to lose them is a great hook and keeps the watcher invested for the entire episode. All the events in the cases still have affects on the cast, making small overarching plots that still have heavy consequences. All and all, the cases are all unique, and the characters personalities bounce of each other, creating a perfect mix for a crime show.
Not all crime shows are the same, nor are the viewers the same. Everyone can decide the shows and tropes they like, but these three shows clearly have different strengths and weaknesses. Despite what I have said, enjoy your favorite one all the same.
