My favorite is the granddaddy of them all Cold Case Files followed by the copycat Forensic Files. City Confidential and American Justice take a more indepth look at individual crimes, but I like my forensics to be more, well, forensicy.
The worst in my opinion are the Perfect Crime? (Just a laundry list: The Green River Strangler killed this woman, then this woman then this woman-- then, more than a decade later, he was caught.) and Profiler (I think that’s the name), that lady with that stupid French manicure who babbles on and on about how she catches everybody.
Hubby likes I, Detective because he likes yelling answers at the TV-- B! interrogate him drunk! Don’t wait for him to sober up!
Anybody else suffer from this morbid fascination?
I’m a big fan of these, as well. Pretty much any night, if I’m awake at midnight, I know I can flip over to A&E and there will be something of interest on. That Bill Curtis is a busy man!
Court TV, A&E, whatever, I will find it and find it fascinating. Why? I don’t know, but I have so many other issues to deal with that I must prioritize and this one’s pretty low down on the list. I just watch and enjoy.
Actually theres some shows on TLC around 7pm eastern time during the week that I watch from time to time. I watch all sorts of these shows, I have for a long time too. Pretty interesting to me.
I love 'em. Watch the 7 hour marathon they A&E does every Saturday night. I can’t stand any of the shows on CourtTV or Discovery Channel. shudder A&E is the only way to go.
My twin sister loves these shows. She’s even interviewed with the FBI just so she can have a chance to work in the field!
A personal story…One day I had a doctor’s appointment and came home quite late (didn’t really want to get into specifics with people at home). It was unfortunate that this occurred on a Tuesday when one of the cable stations plays all of these shows (the New Detectives, etc.). Sis was convinced that I had met a rather morbid end.
After getting work, friends, family and the police involved, I strolled in wondering what all the fuss was about.
Yeah I was rapt to the Cold Case Files marathon this Saturday. I’m baffled by some of these cases though. Not on how they eventually solve them, but at how they let the perps slip away in the first place.
That one story (I can’t remember the names) where the guy stalked waitress … shot to death three children and their mother, and then raped and killed two other women. He was picked up after the first murder and was found with a notebook with the victims’ name in it. They let him go.
He is in jail for an unrelated offense and writes a letter admitting to the murders and they don’t believe him. He then denies it with an alibi that he was at work … and they believe that!! It turned out his alibi pointed to his father (who had the same name) being the one at work that night … and they never checked it out!
It just seems to me, some of these cold cases were put into cold storage through incompetence.
It’s actually chilling. All the vicious unhuman crimes they talked about where the killer just … slipped away … no evidence … no clues … no leads. I shudder to think how easy it seems to be to get away with murder. Literally.
My Mom and I watch these whenever we can… unfortunately we don’t have cable so we miss out on all the TLC and A&E shows. There is a local channel that shows Forensic Files and FBI Files on the weekend though and we watch CSI as well (I prefer the real cases though).
I remember that one Jack Batty, and it blew my mind. What does he have to do? Write an epic ballad about his crimes? Sometimes I find Cold Case Files comforting because, hey, they caught the guy eventually. And sometimes I find it chilling, because they should have caught the guy immediately!
I adore them. My favorites are actually the shows on Discovery where they followed the investigation from the dead body through the morgue. Unfortunately, that series got cancelled because of complaints from families who recognized their relatives’ bodies on the show.
The one that annoys me the most is the one on CourtTV with the guy who is always shown in an empty courtroom talking while a TV monitor shows his head. It’s quite annoying.
I like CSI, but sometimes I have to tell myself to stop looking so closely. They stretch believability a bit to fit the story into an hour, so sometimes I have to turn off the educated side of my brain (I’m majoring in computer science and forensics). Even so, every once in a while I end up yelling at the TV… usually at Nick.
I like CSI too, Astra, but at least once per show I’ll turn to hubbo and say “Sorry I’m late! Did I miss any exposition?” (a Buffy reference, which I’m sure everyone here got).
My all-time favourite, though, is still Quincy. I’ll watch re-runs of that anytime.