I've never been big on procedural dramas. When I hear the words 'lawyer', 'hospital' or 'police', my eyes glaze over, and I feel the sudden need to watch a Buffy rerun. For one thing, there's all the corpses....
Jackson: So did anyone see that new show on TV last night?
Lorelai: The one where they were solving crimes by cutting bodies open and poking their organs?
Jackson: No.
Sookie: The one where they're solving crimes from thirty years ago by going to graveyards and cutting open bodies and poking their organs?
Jackson: No.
Lorelai: Oh, the one where people are missing, and then they find their bodies and cut them open and poke their organs and that's how they solve crimes?
Jackson: No.
Lorelai: What else is on?
Gilmore Girls, Season 6, Episode 5.
Police procedural dramas haunt me the most. I'm stretching cop shows to include all forms of law enforcement. (Abbreviated? You're in). Borderline allergic to PPD's, I'll need Buffy: The Musical playing in the background just to get through this post.
Dean: "Calm down? I am wearing sunglasses at night. You know who does that? No-talent douchebags. I hate this game. I hate that we’re in a procedural cop show. And you want to know why? Because I HATE procedural cop shows. It’s like three hundred of them on television, they’re all the freakin’ same!"
Supernatural, Season 5, Episode 8.
Why am I bringing this up? Because filming of The Bill, that British stalwart, is about to cease. Kicking off around the mid-eighties, The Bill has screened for over twenty five years, a lifespan similar to that of an elf in Lord of the Rings. The Sun Hill mob plodded their London beat while many a hyped program fell by the wayside. (And there goes Torchwood).
How can a person dislike cop shows, yet still enthuse about the grandaddy of them, all you ask? Because the Bill is a childhood memory. Like toffee apples, or a Barbie bus, or The Mysterious Cities of Gold on ABC. We were brought up on regular doses of The Bill, bar the saucy and/or violent parts, whereby mum would yell, "close your eyes children!".
Remember good old Reg? And the big walkie talkies? Sorry, police radios. My first car was a volkswagon beetle. During its maiden journey, driving my little bro around the block, there was a Bill-inspired bout of "Roger that, this is Alpha Sierra, we've got a 451 in progress, over". Those were the days.
For us, cop shows were gritty, not flashy. When American efforts of the eighties started flooding in, we were shell-shocked. The glitz and glamour of Miami Vice was a huge revelation. They sure didn't do it that way at Sun Hill police station...
Every new police procedural drama has an angle. A bit like spraying wax on old fruit to create a glossy impression of newness. There's no denying US of A networks are masters of The Hook. Audiences feel comfortable with a familiar format, while enjoying enough variation to freshen the viewing experience.
Best Eighties Police Procedural Hook: 21 Jump Street, with its undercover-cops-posing-as-teenagers, suckered in the much-desired teen demographic.
Seemingly Lame Police Procedural Hook That Worked: NCIS. Agents-specifically-dealing-with-navy-crimes? I thought they were reaching, but hello, spin-off.
Current Trend For A Police Procedural Kooky Sidekick Hook: White Collar, agent-with-con-artist, and Castle, police-detective-with-writer. (These follow in the footsteps of The Mentalist, and Lie To Me, both recently renewed for another season).
Frankenstein of the Police Procedural Family Tree: Supernatural procedural dramas seduce anti-procedural types with some kind of science-meets-spooky hook. Old School example? X-Files. New School examples? Fringe and Warehouse 13.
While it's great to see a little creativity in the mix, one has to ask, how long can policing procedurals remain popular? It seems for every cancellation, networks try a new spin, apparently big fans of the "if it aint broke, don't fix it" philosophy.
New blood for next season includes Blue Bloods, cop-family-in-NYC, and mid-season pick up Ride Along (for hook, see title). Pity those of us in the audience born with some kind of mysterious prodecural immunity, whose attention won't be arrested (I couldn't resist!).
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