#procedurals

[seonghwadyke]

[imthefailedartist]

Found. Lost.

I said it before, and I'm going to say it again as we say goodbye; Found's problem was that it committed too much to being a procedural and not enough to being original.

I wish Found had been focused on one case, Jamie's or another long-term kidnapping, using the case of the week as a guide. It would've had a lot more ground to stand on.

Week to week, I found myself bored with that weeks case and wanting them to get back to Gabi and Sir and finding Jamie. Because when it was focused on those things, the show was electric. When it was looking for random missing people, it was a slog.

It was him escaping the basement too soon. That should've lasted longer it's why we were all watching.

It's like they never knew what the audience wanted. Or they did, and they didn't want to give it to us. Maybe it was a network thing. They weren't willing to do something a little darker than the norm. Fine. Then, advertise the show as such, and people wouldn't've felt bamboozled.

It's ending on such a good cliffhanger. My god. Bring it back, NBC, please. Please!!! Just one more season let's close out this story.

I need to know why Sir thinks he and Gabi are destined to be together (other than him being psychotic)

I need to know if Zeke's going to leave the house.

If he's dead? He's not he's using it as a way to escape.

What's going to happen to Gabi after her confession? To M&A?

Jamie???

[fandomrelatedshowerthoughts]

Whatever one's moral feelings about police DAE get a little annoyed when fictional depictions of police don't appear to follow even what media has established as how police work in fiction never mind how they work in reality like how the detectives on Elsbeth don't appear to have partners (or if Kaya could come back to the show full time somehow after this season/her undercover arc is over #justice4kaya #bringbackblanke they could get the dynamic duo back to working together by just doing for Elsbeth what the LAPD did for Morgan on High Potential with the consultant badge and the 90%-of-the-time-treated-like-just-another-detective (as if you look at the seven episodes/cases there've been since the case Kaya got promoted in the middle of there's two (three if you count the murder she solved while behind bars) where it was mainly just Elsbeth and an officer no other detective, the most recent one with the hostage situation in the toy store and the S2 one with the funeral parlor and the mystery novelist) just with Kaya as her partner like how Morgan has Karadec) or how Idris Elba's Zootopia character Bogo's title doesn't match his role (he's referred to with the title "Chief" but if you were to compare Zootopia against the live-action cop shows it's clearly inspired by (just a movie instead of a show god do I wish we got an hour-long animated procedural sequel instead of the movie Zootopia 2) to compare it to how "TV policing" works and look at his role in the movie versus that he's clearly intended to be more like a police captain (if that, some of his scenes would kinda imply captain some would imply lieutenant) than a chief, I get that the precinct Judy's at in Zootopia is the big-name heart-of-the-city one everyone wants to work at or w/e but I don't think even there that a rookie's direct boss would be referable to by the title chief)

[xipe-slayground]

I'm rewatching The Inside right now and I forgot how fucking much I love Web.

[beingharsh]

the pitt is hho? maybe it has a fighting chance at not being garbage

[cosmicfurby]

Goood Morning Everyone

my scholarly ass can't stop herself from conducting a study even when I'm in holidays so hear me out because i formally present to you:

A Non-Comprehensive List of Common Tropes in 2000s Procedurals

High school reunion episode

Supernatural/alien themed episode (bonus points if the ending is left ambiguous as to whether the supernatural is real)

Santa Claus is fucking dead

Reality show/TV/bloggers/otherwise filming crew follows the team for a day

Episode focusing on a specific subculture (furries, science fiction nerds, comic books) that somehow misunderstands said culture completely

The Gay/Lesbian/Drag Queen/Somehow LGTB+ Themed Episode With Ye Olde Performative Activism! Exciting!

Clowns episode.

Social justice activists are crazy and misguided amirite

Oh no character from main cast has been kidnapped

Oh no there is a bomb and main character can't move (bonus points if it's a retrospective episode)

Episode takes place between our time and somewhere in the past, Cold Case style; main cast plays the characters from the past (bonus points if someone in the main cast descends from those characters)

Soap opera episode

Amish episode

Crew visits another country

Serial killer plot spanning several episodes and sometimes even seasons (!! ambitious)

Autistic person is only witness of crime but they're non verbal and can't communicate properly, ableism level may vary

If you think of any more tropes, please do reblog this post with them!! it's for SCIENCE

[terapsina]

You know one of the things I like about 'procedural shows' more than 'a single overarching plot' shows?

The fact that time passes.

You can basically expect that within the universe it's been basically as long between episodes as it's been outside it. And then between seasons there's probably like a three month skip within the show too. People get to grow older. You know how long they've been killing vampires, or meeting aliens, or conning rich people.

And yes it means that June tends to be Apocalypse season and "it must be Tuesday" whenever something weird happens (but who doesn't love an inside joke?).

On the other hand with shows that start the next episode where the last one ended? And the new season where the old one ended too? Who the hell knows how time passes in there, sometimes it takes four seasons to tell a story that in universe takes up anywhere from two to six months and by the time they're done you need timey-whimey algebra to figure out how old the characters are now (and sometimes not even the writers know anymore).

Like, I actually enjoy both kinds of shows, as long as the story and characters are interesting I will love it. But I kind of miss getting to watch new fantasy and science fiction shows that have the demon/alien of the week. There are a lot of things I like about procedurals, and this is one of the reasons (another being that generally they have more time for character exploration).

There's a reason BtVS, Charmed, Stargate SG-1, Leverage and other shows with that format are so well loved (admittedly I'm probably the only one for who the way time passes in them is one of those reasons (in my defense it's not the main one, the main one is how the writers made me love the characters)).