I watched 24 intermittently. The only season I think I stuck with all the way through was the third one - with Tony and his wife, and Paul Blackthorn as the villian.
When the procedurals started - I sort of liked them - with Prime Suspect, Murder One, Law and Order, Homicide: Life on the Streets, the Profiler, and in book form - Patricia Cornwall's Kay Scarpetta series. The problem was like any hot new trend - the networks went overboard and soon all I saw were procedurals. And...here's the thing the hyper-real wasn't that real to me after a while - CSI is eye-rollingly wrong at times. Forensic pathologists do not, I repeat, do not interview, interrogate, or arrest suspects. That's what cops and homicide detectives do. The pathologists just assist them. Bones - is laughingly off at times - because there is no way in hell that a pathologist would be allowed to go interview a suspect. She stays in the lab. She might get to do some leg-work but nothing like what that show depicts.
Prime Suspect, Murder One, Hill Street Blues, Homicide Life on the Streets and Law & Order were actually fairly realistic and did stretch the boundaries of belief. You could not in those shows convict someone based on a fingerprint impression from a wall or a hair fiber. CSI makes me laugh - whenever they do fingerprinting - I know for a fact that you can't get a fingerprint off most of the surfaces they manage to.
At least with fantasy or science fiction - the suspension of disbelief is more or less up front, you know what the lies are and just want them to be consistent in their universe. In procedurals - the universe is ours and if you know anything about criminal procedures or forensic pathology, you'll find what appears on screen to be funny. Criminal Minds - sigh, it makes the Profiler look like Shakespeare and I wasn't that in to the Profiler.
I do miss the old style mysteries - Moonlighting, Remington Steele, Scarecrow and Mrs King, Murder She Wrote - even though I admittedly got bored of them after awhile too. The problem is the networks discover a tv format that works then go crazy copying it - the publishing industry does the same thing with books - to the point that it loses it's uniqueness and allure and finally goes out of fashion once the next trend takes off.
Also agree on "true crime" - I liked it for a while, when I was much younger, but the older I get the less I tend to like the true crime stories - they feel less interesting and more exploitive and make me cringe. Again it might be another symptom of market saturation or overdose - the true crime trend started in the 70's with Helter Skelter and Patty Hearst and went into hyperdrive in the 90's with the OJ Simpson fiasco and all its off-shoots. It's not doing as well now. People have finally begun to lose interest or maybe with the War in Iraq and the constant reports of terrorism - people just want to escape from all of that when they watch movies or books or tv shows.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2007-10-19 08:37 pm (UTC)When the procedurals started - I sort of liked them - with Prime Suspect, Murder One, Law and Order, Homicide: Life on the Streets, the Profiler, and in book form - Patricia Cornwall's Kay Scarpetta series. The problem was like any hot new trend - the networks went overboard and soon all I saw were procedurals. And...here's the thing the hyper-real wasn't that real to me after a while - CSI is eye-rollingly wrong at times. Forensic pathologists do not, I repeat, do not interview, interrogate, or arrest suspects. That's what cops and homicide detectives do. The pathologists just assist them. Bones - is laughingly off at times - because there is no way in hell that a pathologist would be allowed to go interview a suspect. She stays in the lab. She might get to do some leg-work but nothing like what that show depicts.
Prime Suspect, Murder One, Hill Street Blues, Homicide Life on the Streets and Law & Order were actually fairly realistic and did stretch the boundaries of belief. You could not in those shows convict someone based on a fingerprint impression from a wall or a hair fiber. CSI makes me laugh - whenever they do fingerprinting - I know for a fact that you can't get a fingerprint off most of the surfaces they manage to.
At least with fantasy or science fiction - the suspension of disbelief is more or less up front, you know what the lies are and just want them to be consistent in their universe. In procedurals - the universe is ours and if you know anything about criminal procedures or forensic pathology, you'll find what appears on screen to be funny. Criminal Minds - sigh, it makes the Profiler look like Shakespeare and I wasn't that in to the Profiler.
I do miss the old style mysteries - Moonlighting, Remington Steele, Scarecrow and Mrs King, Murder She Wrote - even though I admittedly got bored of them after awhile too. The problem is the networks discover a tv format that works then go crazy copying it - the publishing industry does the same thing with books - to the point that it loses it's uniqueness and allure and finally goes out of fashion once the next trend takes off.
Also agree on "true crime" - I liked it for a while, when I was much younger, but the older I get the less I tend to like the true crime stories - they feel less interesting and more exploitive and make me cringe. Again it might be another symptom of market saturation or overdose - the true crime trend started in the 70's with Helter Skelter and Patty Hearst and went into hyperdrive in the 90's with the OJ Simpson fiasco and all its off-shoots. It's not doing as well now. People have finally begun to lose interest or maybe with the War in Iraq and the constant reports of terrorism - people just want to escape from all of that when they watch movies or books or tv shows.