I would suggest that early and mid-L&O did have ongoing stuff, but it was waaay in the background most of the time, because the show was about the job rather than about the personal life. And then, every once in a while, Mike Logan would totally go bananas over a case, and we'd be reminded, Oh yes, this fellow has issues about kid victims. For example.

WAT is similarly a show about the job -- but the personal stuff is closer to the fore. Months before that Christmas episode in which Malone basically owned up to having attempted suicide when he was younger, I knew and most of the characters had vaguely guessed that he was a functioning depressive.

Now CSI, that is a show that can't make up its mind from year to year whether its characters have continuous personalities or not.

The most entertainment I've had in the ER is being on morphine and running into (well, adjacenting into) a FoaF.

But the plot of the episodes is almost never about the main characters. Sure, there was Lennie Briscoe's daughter, but that kind of thing only happens once a season, if that, on any of these shows. To me it's not about there not being ongoing character development and exploration, but more what is the A plot of the episode?

ERs suck ass. never had anything close to entertainment happen in one.

That WaT episode where they brought that custody thing to the foreground bored and irritated me. Hell, I even get itchy when a character starts resonating with the A plot.

I got rushed to the front of the line when I went into one complaining about chest pains.

Did someone already post this? Dick Cheney mistakes Holocaust memorial ceremony for meeting of ski club.

I got rushed to the front of the line when I went into one complaining about chest pains.

They didn't rush me, but hey! Morphine. Enough that I was turning the stuff down.

To me it's not about there not being ongoing character development and exploration, but more what is the A plot of the episode?

Oh, sure. But in the early seasons of L&O, it was possible to develop and explore characters by watching them do their jobs. I don't think that's really so any more, but I haven't watched it regularly in years.

Hell, I even get itchy when a character starts resonating with the A plot.

I guess it depends, for me. The recent Sam gets all mushy thinking about Barbara Ehrenreich-type low-wage workers episode was an annoying instance of same; the one from a couple of years ago, where HDT talked Joan of Arcadia down off a ledge by telling her his sad childhood, without us knowing whether it was true or not till afterwards, worked for me.

I saw that earlier Steph, and I can't tell you how massively offended I am.