Cop shows seem to also fall into a wider (or narrower) type of episodic show formula with these elements:
- Recurring characters
- reason for short term characters to cycle in and out each week
- reason for new problem to pop up and be solved each week
This usually means new people coming to the main characters each week, or they go somewhere new each week.
Cop, lawyer, and medical shows fit the first perfectly. That’s what those jobs entail, so it’s easy to write scripts. Pure laziness. Every once in a while you get something creative (using the term loosely) like Love Boat, but it’s the same idea.
The second nets us stuff like Star Trek,A-Team, etc. Those require a premise for moving constantly, so are less common, but often more memorable.
