Procedural Shows

Before reading this, I suggest you read the introduction to this site where I say what I'm doing.  

Previous Sections
The Shows That Changed Television
Quirky Comedy
Unconventional Drama
Classic Comedy
British TV Shows
Supernatural

The average TV watching person loves the type of show this post is about.  It allows them to easily view a show out of order, whenever they want, and most of the time, the season doesn't really matter either.  Also, it's not a comedy.

It's a procedural show.  A problem is presented at the beginning of the episode, the entirety of the episode is spent solving that problem, and the end is the solution of the problem.  There aren't really season-long arcs.

I'll use Wikipedia's definition of a procedural show if that wasn't clear enough: "Self-contained episodes also make it easier for viewers to return to a show if they have missed some episodes."  

I'm not really a fan of this format.  These shows were hurt most by Netflix in my opinion.  While I can see people watching a bunch of Law & Order episodes in a row if they are bored, nothing really pulls you in strongly to watch an episode.  Breaking Bad makes you want to watch every episode as soon as you can.  Law & Order?  Not so much.

If it sounds like I'm picking on Law & Order, I'm really not.  I've seen quite a few episodes and it's on this list so I'm a fan.  It pretty much created CSI, NCIS, and all other crime procedural shows.

I've gone on explaining this enough, so I'll just jump in and list the five shows I have picked out.  A important disclaimer is that these labels I give the show aren't necessarily strict so if you are somehow offended by this characterization, well, first off, analyze your life cause this isn't worth being upset over. Secondly, I haven't seen the show you're talking about most likely so if it's not a procedural, whoops?  

Law & Order (1990-2010)
Law & Order wasn't the first "procedural show" I got into - that would be CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - but it did pretty much create the genre.  I don't plan on watching all 20 seasons, because I don't love the show that much.  It's a good show to watch in your free time.  It's weird.  I never come away blown away by the show, yet I never come away disappointed.  It's adequate television.

I'll be watching the first eight seasons.  Why that rather arbitrary number you ask?  Well, quite simply, those are the only seasons on Netflix.  Eight seasons pretty much covers the 1990s, and I've seen quite a few re-runs of the 2000s episodes that I feel like I would have a good crash course on Law & Order history.

Is it odd that I find the changing of characters one of the most interesting things about Law & Order?  This is the only show I can think of that is watched due to its concept and not the characters.  I suppose Sam Wasterson comes in and slightly changes that (Jerry Orbach has an argument as well).  But most of these characters last a few seasons and then you have to adjust to a new one.  And people still watch the show.

The concept of the show is the law side of things and the order side of things (THAT'S THE NAME OF THE SHOW!).  The law features the district attorney, the executive A.D.A. and his assistant.  The order side features the two detectives and their commander.  To give an idea of the overhaul of characters, so far Chris Noth has remained the entirety of three seasons, but his partner has changed three times.  And he leaves after the fourth season.  The commander has also changed.  On the law side, Adam Schiff remains for 10 seasons.  Michael Moriarty has been the executive A.D.A the entire time, but his assistant has changed already.

Basically, that's six key positions in the show and only three have the same characters after just three seasons.  After four, the lone remaining original character is the district attorney, Adam Schiff.  I can't think of another show that could do that and still have the necessary ratings to remain a TV show.

Anyway, that's enough ink spilled on Law & Order (but not really - I'm on a computer, I just really wanted to say that).  I'm on Season 4, Episode 8.

Bones (2005-present)
So this show is about as light-hearted as a show can possibly get.  Everything about this show should make me hate this show.  But I can't hate it.  I actually like the show.  It's pretty enjoyable.  I like the characters.  Most importantly perhaps, I like David Boreanz.  I mean I liked him before I got into Buffy, but yeah having watched Buffy, I definitely like him more.  It's impossible not to now see him as Angel.

Pysch (2006-present) (Updated: I was correct about the procedural part, but USA shows get its own category for their... uniqueness)
Man, this show just looks like I'd enjoy it.  I've never seen the show, but it just looks like it's fun to watch.  It's got a really good rating on IMDB (8.4/10) and I've heard positive things from my friends about the show.  It's a USA Network show so I'm pretty positive about this categorization. If you've never seen a USA Network show, they are the epitome of allowing viewers to pop in whenever they want to watch an episode.

Updated: I've seen one season and I love this show.

Burn Notice (2007-present) (Updated: This is now in a different category - USA Shows)

Sigh... I have nothing to say.  I think it's overacted, with stupid plotting, and annoying voiceovers.  I can't tell you why it's listed here.  I would try if it wasn't impossible.  I'm not encouraging anyone to watch this show.

Law and Order: SVU (1999-present)
So... if you've ever accidentally caught a day-long marathon of this show, you understand.  I never mean to watch a bunch of episodes, but hey the next episodes on and it looks interesting already.

Anyway, this show is probably better than the original.  At least, I've been blown away by certain episodes, it has the same main characters for most of its run, and it goes farther in developing those characters.

The material is more serious, the stakes seem higher... everything about this show is just better than the original.  Perhaps I like Wasterson or Orbach more, but Law & Order didn't get me to care too much about their personal lives like this show does.

Updated
I've only added one extra show to this stable and that would be Castle.  This show wouldn't even be on my radar if it wasn't on Netflix and didn't star Nathan Fillion.  Those are the only reasons that show is on this list.

USA Shows
This is a separate, unique category on my Google Docs page, but USA shows are essentially procedurals from what I have seen so it's appropriate that I just post them here as well.  As from above, I plan to watch both Pysch and Burn Notice.  Pysch has been started and it's more fun than I anticipated.  You need fun, well-written shows like this.  I haven't disliked an episode yet.

Also on this list are Suits and White Collar.  I've been specifically told not to watch White Collar so I'm not sure when I'll get to that show.  Suits, on the other hand, I've only seen positive things.  It'll be a while until I get to that and I don't write about any procedural shows so you'll probably not hear about it until I update these posts again in 2015.

Overall
This is a section that will be largely ignored.  There's not many TV shows on this list and for that I'm glad.  I watch these shows sparingly and it will take a while for me to get through them.  For instance, I probably won't finish Law & Order Season 4 for months.  I just randomly decide to start viewing an episode.

(I realized CSI: Crime Scene Investigation applies here, but I've seen so many episodes that I just left it off the list.  It's essentially already watched.  And really if you've seen one of these episodes, you've seen all of them.  I've seen like 50 of them)

I haven't decided what comes after Law & Order.  I might just do Law & Order: SVU because the original ends in 1998 (at least for what I'm watching) and SVU starts in 1999.  That just seems like a perfect flow in terms of timeline.  I might watch Burn Notice, because I hate myself.  I might watch Pysch next because it's probably the best show on this list.  I don't see a scenario where I watch Bones next though.

Anyway, I have probably a year to figure that out.  I have just one category left and that category is "Other."  Either a certain category got too large or I literally thought it didn't apply to them, these are shows essentially without a category.

Introduction to Site

Lately, I have become slightly motivated to write about sports, but then my need to write went away soon after I began writing an article on something sports-related and I found myself disinterested in finishing.  I can't seem to put enough focus into finishing a detailed, numbers-driven article.  Usually a sports post will take me hours, so I'm assuming that has a lot to do with it.

So here I am giving writing about television a try, which for the past year or so has become an insane habit of mine.  My purest intention is to watch good television.  So I never go into a TV show blind (I doubt many do).  I check IMDB ratings, I check my favorite TV reviewers opinions of shows, I take into account what my friends think of the show, and basically just get a feel if the show is worth my time.  (This sounds harsher than I intend, I assure you.)

My opinion is that this is the golden age of television.  At least, this is the age where you can pretty much watch a good television series as long as you buy Netflix.  There are seriously enough good TV series on Netflix to last you years so long as you don't burn through entire series in a month.

I am mostly going to be writing season reviews, although doing episode reviews of classic television shows such as The Sopranos has intrigued me.  So I periodically do episode reviews of that nature.  I've also sporadically done episode reviews of personal favorite television shows of mine.  I wrote Breaking Bad episode reviews and doing episode reviews for The Americans.  I'll pick and choose which shows I do very strictly so this isn't going to be a normal thing.

To be clear, here's an idea of how crazy I am with this obsession of mine.  I mentioned sports writing before which I wrote three times a week for a while.  That was replaced by needing to watch the greatest movies of all time, which I usually found searching random sites.  (Needless to say, I was devastated when megavideo was declared illegal)  Then last year, I signed up for a month-long free trial of Netflix for a reason I'm not sure of right now, and you pretty much need Netflix once you've experienced it.  (Netflix is not paying me, believe it or not)

Anyway, somewhere along the line I started slowing watching good series, not really trying to watch ALL of the good series.  Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Dexter, etc.  I had a bit of a slow start on this little quest of mine since my TV experience was limited to every Friends episode (each one I've seen more than once), CSI, Law and Order: SVU (strangely not the original), and... that's about it.  I never really committed to a series besides Friends (which I grew up on).

While on my winter break, I realized I was watching so many TV shows at once, that I decided to categorize the TV shows I was watching.  I ended up with eight different categorizations, totaling (don't laugh and I swear this is the real number) 76 shows.  76.  I've seen every episode of the series for 10 of those 76, so that means I'm either in the process of or haven't started 66 series that I want to see.

I should also mention that six of the 66 shows I literally cannot watch more episodes due to the fact that they have more seasons or they haven't been posted on Netflix.  And lastly, seven of the shows are in the last season that I can watch or that aired.  

That still leaves a TON of shows.  I'm not delusional.  This is going to take a few years especially with school.  I'm sure summer will bring an uptick in episodes watched.  (Also, I expect the shows to gradually decline as the year progresses as the beginning features little homework and the end is finals)

So I guess this is a good place to mention what my eight categories are.  First, are the greatest shows on television or the shows that changed television (Link) - according to Alan Sepinwall, my favorite TV critic.  Here's the list and whether I've watched, am watching or plan to watch (updated 6/24/14):

Breaking Bad - Status: Seen all five seasons
Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Status: Seen all seven seasons

Friday Night Lights - Status: Seen all five seasons

Lost - Status: Seen all six seasons
Mad Men - Status: Seen all seven seasons

The Wire - Status: Seen all five seasons
The Shield - Status: Seen all seven seasons

The Sopranos - Status: Seen all six seasons

24 - Status: Seen first six seasons

Deadwood - Status: Watching first season

Battlestar Galactica - Status: Not started

Oz - Status: Not started

This category is my most exciting and the one I look forward to completing the most.  The best part is that I own all seasons to Deadwood and Oz plus 24 is on Amazon Prime, which I recently purchased.  I finished The Shield by watching the free seasons that popped up on Hulu every three months.  Soon the first two seasons will be there and I recommend you start when given the chance.  I'll be finishing 24 over the next year and beginning Deadwood sometime next spring.  Oz and Battlestar will be considerably later.

When I first wrote this post in January of last year, I had a different group of categorizations that I became dissatisfied with so I changed my categorizations to better fit how I ended up actually watching these shows.  I still have the shows that changed television, which I still only watch one television series at a time meaning I wait until I finish one series before I start another.  The exceptions are Mad Men, which is still airing, and 24, which is a show I try to binge-watch and I can safely separate my viewing experiences by seasons.  Basically, I make sure I have a week or so of time available to watch the show before I begin a season and that means I'll probably be unable to watch any seasons during the school year.

Another categorization that hasn't changed is Classic Comedy.  I've re-arranged some of the shows, but this is the simplest one and mostly is undisturbed.  The most recent of the shows stopped airing in 2006.  The earliest of the shows began airing in 1960.  I'll refer you to my updated Classic Comedy post if you're interested in reading about the 14 shows that fall under that.

The category formerly known as Quirky Comedy is now just Comedy.  This has mostly not changed.  I switched out Scrubs and Arrested Development and added a few shows.  This is another 14 show category.  If you're interested in reading about specific shows, read my Comedy post.

Another category that has survived is Procedurals.  In fact, I've basically split this into two different categories, Procedurals and USA Shows.  USA Shows from what I've seen are procedurals in the loosest sense (a drama that isn't serialized - you can watch any episode in any season and be able to not be affected too strongly; maybe you missed a relationship that developed but nothing important).  But I felt uncomfortable listing Burn Notice and Law and Order in the same category as they are not even close to the same show.  If you're interested in reading about these two categories, I consolidated them into one post here.

(If you've fallen upon this link now, it means you've seen this earlier than I intended.  I had eight original categories, but only three of them were even close to the same as my revised categories.  I now have 13 categories.  My unconventional drama's name is now changed and is basically unrecognizable from its original group of shows.  I scrapped Supernatural as a category as I realized Star Trek would take too long to watch and was detracting from me watching anything else in its category and made Star Trek its own category; Anyway, I should update the rest of the categories soon)

Next Post: I'll talk about shows that changed TV