Why Cop Shows Work Better Than Dramas.

Soap Operas. That's what happened to night time dramas. The formula works like this: You have a hero, and he/she has to deal with all the opposition to a peaceful life that comes at him. All well and good, except in a TV production, you can't have continuing characters on the "evil" side without allowing them to skate by many of the consequences of their actions.

On a Cop show, the good guys are the cops, and the bad guys are the opposition and they get caught and are either dead or go to jail. Sometimes they get away and come back, and sometimes they get out of jail and return, but largely, Villians on cop shows are guest actors. In a Drama show, you are trying to have villians and heroes who are on the shows for a while and many times the attempt is for more 3 dimensional characters so the bad guys slowly weave their destruction. But even when they are caught, they somehow stick around to cause more damage. Recently watched shows like Sons of Anarchy, Walking Dead, and a couple of others. The people who cause problems aren't just outed, like they would in real life, so they keep stirring things up.

Example. Walking dead. The main character has an old partner who is slowly going mad. Be fore he finally gets dispatched in season two, I think, he has done quite a few nasty things and soiled a lot of relationships and caused heartache constantly. There is a character who runs a small encampment that is discovered in one season and 1) the people following him never see how destructive he is, 2) Although he finally betrays all his people and kill or damage a lot of others, is still running around causing trouble seasons later.

Example. Castle. A person is killed, and though it takes a while to find out who the killer is, and though the killer might be smart enough to allude the cops or play with them a bit, eventually in a show or two, he is caught and killed or sent to jail. There is an ongoing story of someone who is trying to hurt the characters, but he isn't obvious and not in every episode.

In real life, it isn't very often someone is a trouble maker and all that person's acquaintances continue to spend time around them. Usually, even in the case of a family member, the people around them just go away and the person has to find new circles to cause their trouble in.