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.


 * 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 and 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 and 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.