CrimeTV enthusiasts?

[crimebug]

Anyone in this part of cyberspace enjoy the crime genre of television? I am talking Court, investigations, crimescenes, etc...

I find that the only channel I've found this kind of stuff on is CourtTV. They have a good line-up this year. I watch "The Investigators", "forensic files", and my absolute favorite show "Dominick Dunne's Power Privilege and Justice". It satifies my desire to see REAL stories about crime, not the fictional and sometimes predictable plots that we see on other networks.

[Faithless]

Does this include CSI Las Vegas?

I understand that Quentin Tarrentino is to direct a future episode.

[applehead]

when you're into real crime shows and things
like forensic files, shows like CSI and etc
seem so cheesy.

[Faithless]

Yeah, I guess.

I like watching those actual crime shows -- it sort of puts into perspective what really happens in a CSI unit.

One thing is the timing of it all. CSI does not show the real length of time it really takes to analyze DNA evidence, for one, I guess.

(This Linda Trinh story is down to analyzing evidence and the turn-around is supposed to be weeks.)

But I still like to watch the fantasy and the reality of it all. Sometimes, the reality is just as cool -- especially when they catch the suckers. The only difference is there's no "Whooooo Arrrrre Youuuu" to go along with the capture in real life. :rolleyes:

[tvbdude]

does any of you have the balls to be a coroner?

[Faithless]

does any of you have the balls to be a coroner?
Balls or stomach?

I like watching those medical shows where they rip into patients and expose the heart and stuff. But I can't stand to watch the needle being injected into my own flesh.

Kind of weird how graphic cop shows have gotten over the years. CSI goes all out with showing blown off faces and all. It gets harded to outdue the real life stuff. :rolleyes:

[ism]

My mom has been watching that stuff for a while now. She always watched the Saturday Night Solution. She even watches the repeats. The same stories are getting recycled between the different shows. It's getting boring. It's kinda funny how CourtTV morphed.

I appreciate the fact that these shows explain how difficult it is to solve a case and how long it takes. CSI wraps everything up in an hour which is ludicrous. Some of these cases take 20+ years to solve.

A&E has a decent lineup you might be interested in, including Cold Case Files.

does any of you have the balls to be a coroner?I think I could do it. I have a problem with blood and watching surgery but that's only with people that are alive. I don't have a problem looking at or cutting dead people up; it's dissection at that point.

But you figger, when you leave work you must stink pretty bad. On the bright side, your clients don't argue with you.

[Shuriken]

There's a funny article in today's (Feb. 28) L.A. Times called "Channel Surfing to a Life of Crime" by Peter Mehlman. The article basically says, in a humorous way, that watching enough crime TV can teach one how to be a master criminal.

[Emperor_Mike]

I like watching American Justice and City Confidential on A&E. The narrator on City Confidential can make any innocent statement sound downright sleazy. Love the show.

[Faithless]

There's a funny article in today's (Feb. 28) L.A. Times called "Channel Surfing to a Life of Crime" by Peter Mehlman. The article basically says, in a humorous way, that watching enough crime TV can teach one how to be a master criminal.
If that's your propensity.

I like to watch 'em because the lingo is educational --
* Epithelials.
* Latent fingerprints.
* Striae Striation.

And then there's that flashlight which seems to pickup the presense of semen everywhere. "Nick, look, there's some in this sock!" :frown:

With CSI, though, they also mix in some generalizations about tendencies that I wonder about sometimes. Can't name one off the top of my head -- but sometimes you'll hear one of the CSI peops say that a certain segment of a population has a tendency to do X. And you wonder if that's really true.

.
I like watching American Justice and City Confidential on A&E. The narrator on City Confidential can make any innocent statement sound downright sleazy. Love the show.
It will be interesting when they finally detail how the BTK killer was caught.

[kpih]

does any of you have the balls to be a coroner?

Or the nose. The smell is the worst part. It sticks to clothes...

[applehead]

does any of you have the balls to be a coroner?


i don't think i can.
to me there's something wrong about
cutting up a dead body.
it seems wrong. and invasive.

total opposite of jose.
i, actually don't see anything wrong
with cutting into people that are alive though.
i find surgery to be fascinating.

[>:^|]

total opposite of jose.
i, actually don't see anything wrong
with cutting into people that are alive though.
i find surgery to be fascinating.

a haiku:

Suddenly fearing,
Cancelling the New York trip.
Leaving me intact.

[applehead]

a haiku:

Suddenly fearing,
Cancelling the New York trip.
Leaving me intact.

AAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
shaddup and call me when you get here.
:biggrin:

[crimebug]

wow, old thread. i wanted to update that the new season of dominick dunne is out this summer. crime fans rejoice.

[Faithless]

He talks about the rich, right? I like it when they fall.

[crimebug]

hahaha, yes, its why I watch the show. I enjoy seeing these people exposed.

[Faithless]

Give me your list of good crime shows to watch.

And do you consider America's Most Wanted amongst them?

What about the COPS series?

Heeeeeyyyy, did you write this article? :rolleyes:

Can you believe all these words devoted to fascination with crime shows?

For network and cable TV, crime does pay (http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2005/07/05/for_network_and_cable_tv_crime_does_pay/)

By Manuel Mendoza, Dallas Morning News | July 5, 2005

Crime TV is on the rise.

The police procedural genre has all but taken over TV dramas, and not just on the major broadcast networks. Cable channels are increasingly feasting on serial killers and other gruesome crime stories, while CBS has come to rely on procedural dramas for half of its prime-time schedule.

Last season, a third of the Top 40 shows on television were procedurals, loosely defined as programs that depict a crime each week and solve it. Most of the other top-rated programs were reality shows or comedies, with only six dramas having nothing to do with crime making the list.

''So far, there's no end in sight for the audience's appetite for these shows," says CBS scheduling chief Kelly Kahl. ''It's hard to argue with where these shows rank."

NBC, however, appears to be pulling back. The network has canceled a fourth ''Law & Order" series, subtitled ''Trial by Jury," and also the long-running ''Third Watch," and hasn't added any new procedurals to its fall schedule. Taking their place are shows with sci-fi premises inspired by the success of ABC's smash, ''Lost."

''Right now we could be seeing the pendulum swing back just a little bit because the two big out-of-the-box hits this past year, ''Lost" and ''Desperate Housewives," were extremely serialized," says Ted Frank, NBC's executive vice president of current series. ''At a time when there are so many procedurals on the air, you have to be thinking of ways to bring in other kinds of dramas."

The latest procedural, TNT's ''The Closer," is a huge hit. Its premiere drew 7 million viewers, the largest audience ever for a basic cable drama series. And when TNT introduces another new drama next month, it'll also concern cops and robbers: ''Wanted," about a squad hunting down fugitives in Los Angeles.

Credit top-rated ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." Focused on forensics, the gritty CBS series sparked this new wave of crime shows when it launched five years ago. One season earlier, 1999-2000, only three procedurals were top 40 hits, including two editions of NBC's ''Law & Order," once the standard bearer of the modern crime series.

Now there are three ''Law & Orders" and three ''CSIs" on the air, and the concentration at NBC and CBS doesn't end there. NBC also has ''Crossing Jordan" and ''Medium" while CBS counters with ''Cold Case," ''Without a Trace," ''NCIS" and ''Numb3rs."

And this fall, CBS is adding two new procedurals to its lineup: ''Criminal Minds," starring Mandy Patinkin as a cop trying to get inside the heads of twisted killers, and ''Close to Home," about a suburban mom who prosecutes heinous crimes in her neighborhood. In addition, the network is giving over two prime-time hours on Saturdays to crime TV reruns, adding up to 11 hours of procedurals in a 22-hour schedule.

''With the introduction of 'CSI,' here was a whole new way to look at a procedural crime drama, and that opened the door for other devices and other ways of telling crime stories," CBS's Kahl says. ''That's part of the reason we don't think we're overdoing it. Each of our shows has a different twist."

So who's watching and why?

''The easy answer is women love mysteries and men love maggots," says Ann Donahue, an executive producer on all three ''CSIs" who's in charge of ''CSI: Miami." ''Most shows you get one or the other. We have it all."

ABC and Fox are just getting into the game. Each has produced two new crime shows. Fox has a ''CSI"-like entry called ''Bones," revolving around a forensic anthropologist, and ''The Gate," set in San Francisco's deviant-crime squad. ABC is waiting until midseason to unleash ''The Evidence," based on the dissection of clues, and ''In Justice," a kind of procedural in reverse as the protagonist works to free the wrongly convicted.

''Pick up a newspaper. Pick up a magazine. The radio. Local news. Television is just one of the mediums that tend to gravitate toward the world of crime," says Craig Erwich, Fox's executive vice president of programming. ''People have an interest in it, whether it's wondering what makes people do it to wondering about their own safety. There's probably something very primal about it."

Yet the high interest in crime TV contradicts the national violent-crime rate, which has dropped by more than 50 percent since the early 1970s and is at its lowest point since the FBI started keeping track.

''But fear is up," says Michael Wright, TNT's senior vice president of original programming. ''It seems as if we live in a more dangerous world. Terrorism especially is such an unformed, unknowable, inaccessible sort of fear. It's not like I imagine it might have been in a different era, when you feared a break-in or a robbery."

Blame the media. Never has there been so much crime and terror reporting, from accounts on the Internet and the 24-hour cable-news networks to such reality-based shows as ''Cops" and ''America's Most Wanted."

''We want certainty, and crime shows give us certainty with bad guys getting caught," says Dr. Neal Baer, executive producer of ''Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."

But the medical doctor-turned-writer also believes the procedurals phenomenon has peaked. ''Things get used and used and used, and then they become cliches. I think that's where we're headed. I would predict not many crime shows will do well next season."

Of course, crime dramas aren't new, having been a TV staple for decades. ''Dragnet," the '50s and '60s show that fathered the procedural, started on radio in 1949.

Still, there was no era with the nearly dozen hours of procedurals that will air this fall. What has also changed is their nature and style, taking cues mainly from viscous-heavy ''CSI."

''These crime shows, I will not watch them," says Rachel Weingarten, president of a New York marketing firm that nonetheless has helped promote procedurals. ''I don't find mass murder to be entertaining, even if it's just a TV show."

[crimebug]

Give me your list of good crime shows to watch.

And do you consider America's Most Wanted amongst them?

What about the COPS series?

Heeeeeyyyy, did you write this article? :rolleyes:

Can you believe all these words devoted to fascination with crime shows?

For network and cable TV, crime does pay (http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2005/07/05/for_network_and_cable_tv_crime_does_pay/)

By Manuel Mendoza, Dallas Morning News | July 5, 2005

Crime TV is on the rise.

The police procedural genre has all but taken over TV dramas, and not just on the major broadcast networks. Cable channels are increasingly feasting on serial killers and other gruesome crime stories, while CBS has come to rely on procedural dramas for half of its prime-time schedule.

Last season, a third of the Top 40 shows on television were procedurals, loosely defined as programs that depict a crime each week and solve it. Most of the other top-rated programs were reality shows or comedies, with only six dramas having nothing to do with crime making the list.

''So far, there's no end in sight for the audience's appetite for these shows," says CBS scheduling chief Kelly Kahl. ''It's hard to argue with where these shows rank."

NBC, however, appears to be pulling back. The network has canceled a fourth ''Law & Order" series, subtitled ''Trial by Jury," and also the long-running ''Third Watch," and hasn't added any new procedurals to its fall schedule. Taking their place are shows with sci-fi premises inspired by the success of ABC's smash, ''Lost."

''Right now we could be seeing the pendulum swing back just a little bit because the two big out-of-the-box hits this past year, ''Lost" and ''Desperate Housewives," were extremely serialized," says Ted Frank, NBC's executive vice president of current series. ''At a time when there are so many procedurals on the air, you have to be thinking of ways to bring in other kinds of dramas."

The latest procedural, TNT's ''The Closer," is a huge hit. Its premiere drew 7 million viewers, the largest audience ever for a basic cable drama series. And when TNT introduces another new drama next month, it'll also concern cops and robbers: ''Wanted," about a squad hunting down fugitives in Los Angeles.

Credit top-rated ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." Focused on forensics, the gritty CBS series sparked this new wave of crime shows when it launched five years ago. One season earlier, 1999-2000, only three procedurals were top 40 hits, including two editions of NBC's ''Law & Order," once the standard bearer of the modern crime series.

Now there are three ''Law & Orders" and three ''CSIs" on the air, and the concentration at NBC and CBS doesn't end there. NBC also has ''Crossing Jordan" and ''Medium" while CBS counters with ''Cold Case," ''Without a Trace," ''NCIS" and ''Numb3rs."

And this fall, CBS is adding two new procedurals to its lineup: ''Criminal Minds," starring Mandy Patinkin as a cop trying to get inside the heads of twisted killers, and ''Close to Home," about a suburban mom who prosecutes heinous crimes in her neighborhood. In addition, the network is giving over two prime-time hours on Saturdays to crime TV reruns, adding up to 11 hours of procedurals in a 22-hour schedule.

''With the introduction of 'CSI,' here was a whole new way to look at a procedural crime drama, and that opened the door for other devices and other ways of telling crime stories," CBS's Kahl says. ''That's part of the reason we don't think we're overdoing it. Each of our shows has a different twist."

So who's watching and why?

''The easy answer is women love mysteries and men love maggots," says Ann Donahue, an executive producer on all three ''CSIs" who's in charge of ''CSI: Miami." ''Most shows you get one or the other. We have it all."

ABC and Fox are just getting into the game. Each has produced two new crime shows. Fox has a ''CSI"-like entry called ''Bones," revolving around a forensic anthropologist, and ''The Gate," set in San Francisco's deviant-crime squad. ABC is waiting until midseason to unleash ''The Evidence," based on the dissection of clues, and ''In Justice," a kind of procedural in reverse as the protagonist works to free the wrongly convicted.

''Pick up a newspaper. Pick up a magazine. The radio. Local news. Television is just one of the mediums that tend to gravitate toward the world of crime," says Craig Erwich, Fox's executive vice president of programming. ''People have an interest in it, whether it's wondering what makes people do it to wondering about their own safety. There's probably something very primal about it."

Yet the high interest in crime TV contradicts the national violent-crime rate, which has dropped by more than 50 percent since the early 1970s and is at its lowest point since the FBI started keeping track.

''But fear is up," says Michael Wright, TNT's senior vice president of original programming. ''It seems as if we live in a more dangerous world. Terrorism especially is such an unformed, unknowable, inaccessible sort of fear. It's not like I imagine it might have been in a different era, when you feared a break-in or a robbery."

Blame the media. Never has there been so much crime and terror reporting, from accounts on the Internet and the 24-hour cable-news networks to such reality-based shows as ''Cops" and ''America's Most Wanted."

''We want certainty, and crime shows give us certainty with bad guys getting caught," says Dr. Neal Baer, executive producer of ''Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."

But the medical doctor-turned-writer also believes the procedurals phenomenon has peaked. ''Things get used and used and used, and then they become cliches. I think that's where we're headed. I would predict not many crime shows will do well next season."

Of course, crime dramas aren't new, having been a TV staple for decades. ''Dragnet," the '50s and '60s show that fathered the procedural, started on radio in 1949.

Still, there was no era with the nearly dozen hours of procedurals that will air this fall. What has also changed is their nature and style, taking cues mainly from viscous-heavy ''CSI."

''These crime shows, I will not watch them," says Rachel Weingarten, president of a New York marketing firm that nonetheless has helped promote procedurals. ''I don't find mass murder to be entertaining, even if it's just a TV show."


It is finally happening, crime tv is #1!!

YES I WATCH COPS!! LOVES IT!

[Faithless]

It is finally happening, crime tv is #1!!

YES I WATCH COPS!! LOVES IT!
I think even Animal Planet got into the mix with some show featuring police dogs.

CBS's "Criminal Minds" looks like an interesting one. But it sounds like the critics are seeing one too many of these crime shows.

CBS is even being accused of just inundating it's primetime slots with them.

A new show you've seen before on CBS (http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/05/07/21/100loc_victor001.cfm)
...
Over, and over, and over ... again.

It started with "Criminal Minds," another crime drama that pushes the envelope of just how heinous TV crimes have to be to get attention.

Tell me if you've heard this one before. The show follows an elite investigation team that profiles serial criminals. The crack team puts together all the clues, and you can pretty much bet that by the end of the show they're going to have somebody in handcuffs.

Even the cast of "Criminal Minds" didn't have a clear answer for why there are so many of these shows, other than to effectively say that as long as people keep watching, they'll keep making them.

"I don't personally understand why there are so many, and why it just goes on and on and on like cereal in the aisle at the grocery store," said Mandy Patinkin, who plays Special Agent Jason Gideon. "I'm fascinated by it, and I have not heard a good answer to why. I don't get it."

Neither have I. And neither do I.
...

[younggiftedandblack]

I'm a big crime tv fan. I love all that stuff Cold Case Files and such. I think in a way watching all those shows has jaded me toward mankind.

[Faithless]

I'm a big crime tv fan. I love all that stuff Cold Case Files and such. I think in a way watching all those shows has jaded me toward mankind.
Yeah, especially when you realize that some of those episodes are based on an actual story. :frown:

[crimebug]

I'm a big crime tv fan. I love all that stuff Cold Case Files and such. I think in a way watching all those shows has jaded me toward mankind.

It can also help you learn to NOT do what the victims do, lol.

[crimebug]

Yeah, especially when you realize that some of those episodes are based on an actual story. :frown:


I wonder how close they stay to the story or if they add a little "hollywood" flavor in.

[Faithless]

I wonder how close they stay to the story or if they add a little "hollywood" flavor in.
Oh, you know there's got to be some over dramitization.

But it's scary how much art imitates life. Like I discovered in a news article:
http://forums.yellowworld.org/showthread.php?t=7913

But I don't think there are many bosses like Gil Grissom:
http://forums.yellowworld.org/showthread.php?t=20480

[s1eve]

Crime TV fan here though mainly been watching the dramas like LAW & ORDER, COLD CASE, CSI: NEW YORK/MIAMI, NCIS, NYPD BLUE, THIRD WATCH and a new show called NUMB3RS.

[crimebug]

Crime TV fan here though mainly been watching the dramas like LAW & ORDER, COLD CASE, CSI: NEW YORK/MIAMI, NCIS, NYPD BLUE, THIRD WATCH and a new show called NUMB3RS.


Numb3rs is a good show, and I've actually started watching from the first episode. Usually i dont discover a show until its later and have to play catch up ....

[Faithless]

Numb3rs is a good show, and I've actually started watching from the first episode. Usually i dont discover a show until its later and have to play catch up ....
Is numb3rs the show that started out as this amateur (sp?) film short that caught some big director's eye (and so now, here it is)?

[crimebug]

Is numb3rs the show that started out as this amateur (sp?) film short that caught some big director's eye (and so now, here it is)?


yes, i believe so. but they changed the main character so that he didn't have a mullet. hehe, jk about the last part.

[s1eve]

Is numb3rs the show that started out as this amateur (sp?) film short that caught some big director's eye (and so now, here it is)?

The show is executive produced by Ridley and Tony Scott.

[Faithless]

Now, I know you can't have like all of them.

You know, there was "The Night Stalker" with character Kolchak (starring Darrin McGavin), whose thing it was to investigate werewolves and such in Chicago. :rolleyes:

http://scifi.com/kolchak/overview/

[Faithless]

On MSNBC, Sunday 8-21, there was a special called "Hardened Hearts" (I believe), and it talked about the real life detective work of sex crimes units.

Interesting stuff.

Suspect lineups can be done digitally, now. A detective can put them together on computer and then print and show a victim the print-out for them to identify potential suspects. Less sexy, but better for the cops, it seems. So, if you see a crimeshow drama or movie that still halls suspects under the lineup lights, you know they're behind the times.

Anyway, there were these two women detectives that worked together that seemed atypical as detectives go, but smart as heck nonetheless. They're work made me think of Cagney And Lacey.

[Faithless]

Crime TV fan here though mainly been watching the dramas like LAW & ORDER, COLD CASE, CSI: NEW YORK/MIAMI, NCIS, NYPD BLUE, THIRD WATCH and a new show called NUMB3RS.
What did you think of the haunting melody and song at the end of this Sunday's Cold Case?

If I got the lyrics right, it was Nina Simone's "Strange Fruit".

[eos]

my mom doesn't like it when i watch law and order and csi because she thinks they're scary shows. especially csi with all the graphic and gory scenes, but i absolutely LOVE watching them. also when there's nothing on at night, i sometimes watch stuff on a&e, history channel, and this show on we(i think) called "snapped" about women who kill their husbands.