There is no question that the most prolific TV show format is the dramatic cop show. I’ve evolved my theory about this to reason that this is the result of human conditioning. In spite of all of the wonderful people in the world who yearn for peace, we are still a largely patriarchal realm and in that we are driven to the ideas of violence, justice, and sex. Cop shows provide all three in spades.
Look at these three things like a fix. Assume for a moment that people want to engage in violence. This is the fundamental assumption that Fight Club makes. In truth that assumption can be extended to include the thought that most people want to be in the presence of violence and are too afraid to commit it themselves. Those self same people likely want to commit ‘just’ violence. In other words, they want to whip up on the baddies and not just jack a grandma buying fiber at Target. This is proven by games like Grand Theft Auto which compel you to perpetrate acts of violence on, well, undesirables, indigents, criminals, and douche bags. That last one was my wheelhouse. I’d yank a fool out of a nice car and wait for him to take a swing. Then. It. Was. On.
Sex is a given and hardly worthy of conversation. If you aren’t having it, you probably want to know that other beautiful people are–at the very least so that you can imagine that you could have such a scenario unfold in your own life.
Justice is tied into the other two concepts. Requited love is an aspect of justice. We want to see the guy get the girl and vice versa. We also want to see the bad guy get what s/he deserves, which is the key component to a good cop drama. Once you add up all the rest of the goodies it is easy to see why these things proliferate on TV.