I'm pretty sure if I were pitching a new show right now, it would have two characters sitting in an office 90% of the time.

A reality tv show about life in the Writer's Room!

One trend I've been finding annoying with procedural-type dramas is when they start off as a procedural and I find myself intrigued/interested by the process. Then, a season or two in, they start focusing on the main characters' personal lives ... by which I mean their love/sex lives and the resulting angst. I used to find CSI:Miami tolerable ... until they started in on the women in Horation Caine's life. I liked WaT ... until they started in on the tribulations of Jack Malone's love life. bleah

Toddson,

I totally agree with you. Don't forget the very special episode where one of the team is accused of murder - such special episode may feature:

a) the accused waking up with a dead body and having no recollection of what occurred the previous night(s);

b) someone from the accused past arguing with the accused on a Tuesday, winding up dead by Thursday;

c) the killer from a previous case 10 years ago, escaping from prison and seeking revenge on the CSI/cop/DA

etc.

I don't like the episodes where one of the team has to be cleared of a murder (that OF COURSE they didn't commit), but that'll be one episode per season. It's these interminable arcs with a relationship that is DOOMED (and not in the good way) and they go on and on and on.

I never managed to take CSI: Miami seriously, although I have watched a ton of it--someone at WX suggested watching it like a comedy and that was very entertaining. It always seemed to be too much about Horatio Caine's sheer marvellousness,

I just wanted to put in a note of how GREAT Garrett Dillahunt was in Criminal Minds. He played every phase of the unsub with great delicacy.

I want a procedural where the accused spouse really did not have an affair, where the other spouse really is just an obsessive nutball and the sympathetic other person really is just sympathetic. Every time our investigative heros get into the interrogation room and start screaming at the suspect, I'm rooting for the suspect to be proven innocent and then to sue the investigators for abuse.

NCIS and Bones will occasionally have someone innocent in the interrogation room. And on at least one Bones, the guilty party didn't confess and there wasn't enough evidence for a good case. It was very refreshing.

Don't forget the very special episode

Bonus points if they can combine a, b and c.

Garrett Dillahunt

I love him, but the only time I haven't seem him play a villain (generally one of maximum loathsomeness) of some kind was on John from Cicninatti (except maybe John Henry on SCC, but his earlier incarnation definitely was).

Oh! There was a John Henry look alike on the bus the other morning and it creeped me right the fuck out.

(Something in his posture and stillness making it the character and not the actor that he doppelganged.)