Flip to any network station during primetime and there is a good chance that you’ll see a crime drama. At last count, there are at least 15 different crime dramas on the four network stations: ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC. CBS has nine by itself and there are two shows, Law and Order and CSI, that have expanded into three separate shows each. It seems like there is no end to this crime craze, so why do the networks keep repeating the same idea? Because they work. But to what extent is too many? I feel the networks have already passed that threshold.

Crime dramas have always been around, but in recent years their popularity has soared. Most of their success can be attributed to that fact that each show is separate from the other in the season. A viewer does not have to see the whole season to understand one episode. Each episode is often packed with mystery, action, and unforeseen twists. Unfortunately, as more and more shows are created, ideas become scarce and shows often resort to similar patterns or bizarre events.

The two trilogies of shows, Law and Order and CSI, often fall victim to the lack of crimes available to illustrate. They will often use current news such as the Terry Schiavo case to make an episode; even worse are the impossibly bizarre and unlikely crimes that occur. One CSI: NY episode had a victim killed after being impaled on a swordfish, and another dealt with a martial arts expert decapitating a person with a long blade while hanging upside-down from a tree branch.

When it became clear that there wasn’t going to be a CSI: Spokane or a Law and Order: Elevator Inspector’s Unit, networks opted for crime dramas that dealt with crime from a new angle. CBS is the master of this tactic, having four different shows each dealing with a different aspect of a crime. These shows bring a new fresh look to crime dramas, but even they eventually fall into the same pattern. Numb3rs combines an FBI agent with his math genius brother to solve crimes, but over time, the math involved becomes so ridiculous that the audience has to take for granted whether or not the math works. Other shows use their individual quirks to attract a audience bored of the typical routine, but even those shows often fall victim to the same pattern.

There may not be an end to this wave of dramas, and for most viewers, the shows are one hour mysteries that don’t require a whole lot of thinking. In today’s society, where attention spans are shorter than a .38 caliber bullet, crime dramas are what people want to see.

I am not trying to eliminate crime dramas; rather, I am simply trying to advise people that those shows have begun to blend together into a predictable and unrealistic mess. For those who are hooked on a particular show because it offers a one hour escape from reality, I have no problem. I myself am hooked on House not for its medical mysteries, but because of its intriguing characters.

I do not expect that my rant will affect any change for as long as people enjoy watching crime and medical dramas. So go back to the television and watch the CSI episode where a Nazi scientist murders Siamese twins, experiments on a delusion pirate, cryogenically freezes his identical twin brother, and gets almost beaten to death by a dominatrix whose daughter chewed off her own hand trying to escape the scientist only to be murdered anyway. Just don’t tell me that it’s a realistic representation of our society or our criminal justice system.