LAW AND ORDER LAND Crime dramas are the perfect television to binge-watch or have on in the background as you fold laundry, eat TV dinners, or channel surf. They re familiar, episodic and entertaining.
That familiarity and gritty realness can lead to a viewer tuning out the wilder twists of the genre.
Warning: The following story contains minor spoilers for years-old episodes of Criminal Minds and BBC Sherlock. Continue at your own peril.
I watched a Criminal Minds episode where a man with post-traumatic stress disorder dissociated into a murderous vigilante; 11-year-old me was obsessed and mortified. Sixteen-year-old me stopped watching the show when Agent Reid started having visions of the future while crime-solving. I m sure some explanation existed, and I m happy to read any comments explaining it, but I didn t want to watch a season to hear the excuse.