Crime-Time Soap

A play on Prime Time Soap—a Police Procedural drama that focuses as much on the complicated personal lives of its characters as it does on the crimes themselves.

As a Crime And Punishment show ages and begins to exhaust the variations of its genre, the producers will start to crank up the soap elements of the show to compensate.

Examples of Crime-Time Soap include:

• Against the Wall
• A notable UK example of this is The Bill between 2002 and 2005.
• Black And White is a Taiwanese Series involving two detectives, the female Forensic Doctor, and the only daughter of the local crime boss.
• Blue Bloods
• Bones
• Castle: There haven't been any complicated soapy turns so far, but the focus definitely is on the private lives.
• Without Brenda's truly wacky personal life, The Closer is a straight-up Detective Drama. With it, the show crosses the line into this. It's still pretty awesome, though.
• CSI: Miami
• CSI: NY is heading into this territory as well, as of late.
• Dexter
• House started as a Police Procedural about chasing diseases instead of criminals. Now it's a Crime-Time Soap about chasing diseases instead of criminals.
• The typically plot-driven of Law and Order veered into this territory for its 7th and 8th seasons.
• Following the departure of the original showrunner René Balcer after season 5, Law & Order: Criminal Intent began to veer down this path for the remainder of its run.
• One could argue that this is what is happening to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
• NCIS
• NYPD Blue
• Rookie Blue
• Without a Trace cranks up the drama to literally insane levels with the personal life of Jack Malone. When he's apparently murdered in one episode it actually comes as a relief, more than anything else.