Why Procedurals Will Never Do It For Me

I watched Cold Case last night. I sometimes, if infrequently, will get pulled into watching an episode of a procedural show due to the teaser, or a guest star I like, or a complete lack of anything else on television. Last night it was a combination of all three. Charles (aka Chip) Esten, lately of The Office but a familiar face to the legion of Whose Line Is It Anyway? fans, played a Wolfman Jack-esque DJ who apparently committed suicide during a broadcast in the mid-50s. It's discovered through modern technology that he didn't so much commit suicide as get murdered by an unknown assailant.

As with most shows of this type, the investigators have a number of suspects to go on. Was it his assistant who resented Hawk (the DJ) for not playing his music and whom Hawk had just discovered was taking payola? Was it his ex-wife who wanted to sell the house that he had co-signed on but had never paid money towards? Was it the obsessed fan who wouldn't leave him alone? Was it the fan's violent and criminal boyfriend? Was it the fan's father who claimed the Hawk knocked her up?

I won't spoil it for you - needless to say, it goes in circles but it was an interesting enough story. The one off-putting thing I find about Cold Case is that they're so willing to believe whichever suspect they've come up with next is the guilty party. So in one episode they say with conviction that about eight different people are murderers. Which just makes them look kinda dumb and quick to judge.

But will I be tuning in next week? Nah. There's a somewhat interesting back story with Nestor Carbonell which I wouldn't be opposed to seeing the outcome of, but it's nothing so intriguing that I'll be setting my VCR. And this is precisely why procedurals have never done it for me. I love arcs. I'm like an arc junkie. It's why Season 4 will never be in my top five favourite seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The arc was bad. Individual episodes were fantastic; horrible, horrible arc. It doesn't even have to be a story arc. Character arcs are just as fascinating to me. In fact, I much prefer a strong character arc to a strong story arc. Which is probably why I'll always love Buffy just a little more than Veronica Mars, even though I think there are few seasons of television with a better story arc than the first season of VM. BtVS's character growth was, for the most part, continual and logical. VM's is not so. Which isn't to say it's bad, it's just that I don't understand or see the motivation for a lot of the changes that the characters go through.

But I digress. I think procedurals are great for the summer when most of the good shows are on hiatus and you're not home every week. They're great for when you have an hour with nothing to do and you're looking for something just to occupy your time. And many of them have beautiful cinematography and direction - the original CSI comes to mind. But there's nothing there to keep bringing me back every week. And that's what I think good TV should be about. Wanting to come back to these characters every week and have them be a part of your lives. It's what TV can do that film can't.

I think maybe serials, like 24 and Lost, are relationships. They're like your best friend or your significant other. You see them regularly, you put actual time and effort into building something with them. And maybe procedurals are like your second cousins and that fun guy that you like to go clubbing with but aren't particularly close to. You get together once in awhile and have some fun, tell some stories, but you know that there isn't any pressure to hook up again any time soon. Both have their place, and you're fond of both, but you get more meaning out of one than the other and consequently have to put a lot more effort into it. I guess that's the difference.

And I've gone on way to long about this, so we're putting a cap on it.