Why are Dick Wolf shows so addictive?

Cafe Society
1

I’ve watch Law and Order sporadically over the years.

And just recently, I’ve began binge watching L&O: Criminal Intent. (I do enjoy watching Doren mentally destroy the guys at the end)

You know, these show are never something I would say to my friends: “OMG! You have to watch this show!” But yet, I find them completely addictive.

I thinks it’s because every show is basically the same. With L&O, it’s first half detective show, then second half court show.

With Criminal intent it’s always misdirect, misdirect, then comes the mental destruction of the bad guy.

Also, we never learn anything about the protagonists personal lives.

Anyone else have similar feelings?

2

Yeah, I do. They’re comfortable and predictible with well-written characters. The same goes for Chicago PD, Chicago Med, and Chicago Fire.

3

I agree, L&O addict that I am…

But I WISH we didn’t get any details about Goren’s personal life. Some of the worst episodes are learing about his personal life. But, there’s not that many, thank goodness.

4

We actually do, in dribs and drabs, but it’s almost never the focus of the show. “Aftershock” is a notable exception, which I think the show handled rather well.

5

I don’t think I’ve gotten to those episodes yet. You’re making me a little nervous. Lol

6

Just skip Untethered and Endgame completely, skim the internet whever Goren’s brother or his mom (the otherwise awesome Rita Moreno) show up. And skip the therapy sessions in the season 10 episodes. You’ll be fine.

Plus, in later seasons, you get Logan back from “Exile”. Diamond Dogs is a great episode.

And I want to see what happened to G. Lynn Bishop. She needs her own L&O show.

7

Law and Order was the one I had an addiction to. I disagree about ‘never learn anything about the protagonists personal lives’, and I think that’s one of the strengths of the show. The show didn’t dwell on the protagonist’s personal lives, but you got a lot of information about them in brief glimpses and it often tied into their actions of motivations in the show, making them feel more like real people you were taking a glimpse at than just a character. For example, Briscoe was a recovering alcoholic who was reconnecting with his formerly estranged daughter, and that made him much more three dimensional to me.

Also, at least on L&O, they gave hints that a bunch of the boring stuff was happening, so the show always had the feel of ‘we’re editing to only show the interesting parts’ rather than ‘the police spent five minutes to find the key evidence’. Things like both detectives are calling numbers, the one we see has a clipboard with several pages folded back, on the current page he’s crossed off about 1/3 of the names, and he gets a hit. Or as they approach the bar where the barman remembers the guy, they mention something like ‘I’ve already had a half-dozen seltzer waters today, I hope we wrap up soon’. These all imply that there’s a lot of boring stuff that happened (like IRL), they’re just ‘choosing’ not to show it