Non-paywalled link: [ archive.is/L16so ]
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Television has been in a near constant state of volatility and change in the two decades since “NCIS” premiered, in September 2003, a period that has seen the flourishing of reality and prestige programming, cord-cutting and the fading of cable, and the rise of streaming platforms and their more recent consolidation.
While early series like “Dragnet” established the police procedural as a reliable TV format, it was the original “Law & Order” that set the modern template that shows like “NCIS” continue to follow, to great success.
That structure is constructed around the “cold open teaser,” or “body drop,” in which the fresh corpse of the week’s victim is discovered; three acts of investigation, broken up by commercial breaks; and a last-act race to catch the perp or secure the evidence to prove guilt “to re-establish order over chaos,” O’Neill said.
Like “NCIS,” the franchise has maintained an enviable base line of popularity, with “SVU” and its stalwart star, Mariska Hargitay as Olivia Benson, remaining fan favorites even after the original “Law & Order” was canceled in 2010.
More than five million people tuned in to the first episode — technically the Season 21 premiere — in February 2022, while last year’s three-way “Law & Order” crossover special was the most-watched and highest-rated program on the night it aired, on NBC.
Originally conceived and produced exclusively for Australian television, it was picked up by CBS for broadcast in the United States as a result of the recently ended guild strikes — a savvy way to skirt the labor disputes and keep new content flowing outward from the network to audience screens.
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realcaseyrollins 11 months ago
The smartest thing any channel can do is have a low-budget procedural with stable ratings. I'm shocked that streaming platforms haven't tried to make their own NCISes, and lease that content out to channels like ION or CW or sumn