Killer Crime

As I flick through the TV guide, I have recently noticed the abundance of crime shows dispersed throughout television and the vast majority of broadcasting stations. Off the top of my head, I can rattle off at least 10 shows dealing with the overused, all too familiar themes of homicides, robbery, kidnapping, sexual assault and of course murder. Looking to relax on my Saturday evening after a long week of decapitation by paperwork are faced to sit through the all too familiar plot lines, predictable outcomes and unrealistic happy endings. Confused and bored, I wonder if the rest of viewers are experiencing my response or whether society is sadistically too engrossed in these violent atrocities?

Or conversely, are we too bubble wrapped and unexposed to crime, whereby we need to create and portray violent murders and such to experience the sense of fulfilment that catching the bad guy or figuring out how they committed the crime, provides? None the less, with protagonists such as Horatio or Goram from their franchises respectively, one can’t help but feel a sense of security in our law enforcement network, but how safe are we? How many of the bad guys get away? Do the cops always manage to catch the ‘bad guy’ in the knick of time? I highly doubt it. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good murder mystery and I’m not a crime show xenophobe, but please, Jerry Bruckheimer and other producers, the outcomes, the plots and the motives are becoming predictable and boring.