Why is American prime time television dominated by shows about the law and emergency services?

Those are all on Discovery channel.
Dirty Jobs, Deadliest Catch, so on and so forth.

To be honest, I don’t get it either. There’s like 6 medical dramas on NBC

Because right now that is what Hollywood thinks Americans want to watch. They have had other ideas in the past, such as Dallas, about a bunch of no-good oil bidness types and Knot’s Landing, about a bunch of no-good generally wealthy types.

Hollywood has never been accused of being original.

We watch a lot of Discovery, and also Animal Planet and Nat Geo these days.

Because those professions are lively; obviously they’re not really as action-packed as they’re portrayed on TV, but moreso than lot of other professions (yes, I’m considering going into law).

@DominicX I work with lawyers. It’s not lively.

How about these dramas

Accountants, The Thin Grey Line

PE: Life in the Field

Women of Real Estate

USPS: Neither Rain nor Snow

The Real Stories Behind the Paper Hat

Jak Martin, Shipping Clerk

@The_Compassionate_Heretic

lol…well, there goes that career idea… :P

My husband used to be a bailiff. His courtroom was lively every now and then (ie. The Case of the Flying Grandmother and The Case of the Running Bandito), but mostly it was really, really boring. Unless you were the defendant.

@DominicX Well to be honest I don’t work for criminal attorneys. The law my group practices is fairly dull.

Pain, Judgment, blood, suffering, pathos, drama, people at their worst and best from every conceivable walk of life, socioeconomic background and career…Are you kidding? It’s an erotic smorgasbord.

those are easy to make. Because on the outside they seem like very important and action filled proffessions, and since there aren’t a high percentage of employed americans with those careers it’s easy to over dramatize it without most of their watchers knowing how absurd they make it out to be.

Veronica Mars was cool though. Some good actors on that show. :P

Well as an ER nurse just told me the other day:
One night in the ER-overdose and friends left him on friends doorstep thinking he might be dead, he was brought in turning blue, woman cut a chunk out of her husband in a drunken rage, schitzophrenic attacked nurse….and that was one night.

Because they’re easier to write! And HUGELY popular! NCIS has the highest ratings of any show!

All the shows you listed, the procedurals, have the same formulae—you have a high stakes episode, and what’s even better, you can watch one episode without having seen any of the prior ones. Each one is (mostly) self-contained.

They’re also notoriously hideous to be regulars on, because they’re boring as hell to act in. Still, can’t beat that enormous network paycheck.

Edit: All that said, I love me a good L&O. Especially with Mariska.

TV is so homogeneous. That is why a show that does something a little different gets so much attention; shows like Lost, Battlestar Galactica, True Blood, Dexter, etc. These shows have done or are doing well enough that Hollywood needs to wake up and see that people want to watch something that isn’t about people and their jobs.

If you ask me, the more sci-fi on TV, the better.

@drdoombot Freakin’ Lost. I can’t wait for it to come back. Lost has actually influenced my writing.

Personally I watch Seinfeld and Friends on the laptop.

You would maybe prefer the Lone Ranger, or Gunsmoke?

Because when one network hits the jackpot with one formula, the other networks order their own clones. If the clones are succesfull they try to apply the same ingredients to other rip-offs and so on.

Sometimes, when a huge cash cow dies after many years on the air they try to see if they can repeat the same success with similar fare etc…

No wonder people turn to cable and Leno’s show instead.

@andrew, lurve for NCIS!

TBH, I feel NCIS is superior to other shows because of the characters (and Michael Weatherly), not necessarily because it’s a procedural. Unlike the various CSIs, there is a lot of character development (and story development). The stories, although similar, aren’t the same time after time after time.

Sort-of on topic: I feel strongly that one of the reasons why Joss Whedon’s shows do as well as they do (I’m talking more staying power and cult-status than necessarily ratings) is because they aren’t procedurals, and rarely (if ever) deal with the police/feds/lawyers/normal jobs/etc.

(His shows are sort-of professional shows: the life of a slayer and her friends, the life of LA’s champions, the life of some western pirates, the life of a “doll” who has her mind wiped but goes on missions as her job, etc.)

Also, Joss is great about throwing together several genres and making it work, whereas, most other tv shows wouldn’t know genre variety if it danced in front of them wearing a tea cosy.

Finally, there aren’t very many good writers on tv, but there are a lot of mediocre ones. Like others have said—it’s “easy” to write a medical/procedural/judicial drama, which is the path many of said mediocre writers take.

I’m incredibly long-winded, I know. Feel free to ignore me. :D

This afternoon I was browsing through a junk/thrift shop, looking for old camera gear when I saw a complete DVD collection of the 70’s “Starsky & Hutch” series. I bought it without thought. Nostalgia. I wasn’t a great fan back in the seventies but I liked the show for light relief. I am watching the episode where they get sent to Las Vegas as undercover cops at the moment. (They look so young…)

Nothing changes.

Because they are currently what sells advertising.

I’ve got to say this… @ABoyNamedBoobs03 hit it on the head… most of these shows (as far as the medical dramas are concerned) tend to be over the top and are not only inaccurate but also misleading.

@andrew & @evegrimm i’m a HUGE NCIS fan and was actually thinking yesterday of posting a Q on fluther asking what people might think of an NCIS – CSI crossover episode or series of episodes… also I have a HUGE crush on Cote de Pablo…. soooo much hawtness

It beats having prime time dominated by dancing celebrity shows.