Crime dramas

TV Crime Dramas

Crime drama is possibly the most popular subject of television drama. They are full of alarmist and sensationalist images of crime and violence, which allow audiences to experience danger for themselves without actually getting involved. There are three different types of crime drama, series, serial and occasional.

Series dramas are shown regularly and have a completely different story in each episode but have the same location and characters e.g. CSI. An advantage of producing series programs is it's cheaper.

A serial drama is almost like a series but has multiple story lines. The stories continue into following episodes e.g. the bill, soap operas.

Occasional dramas have bigger budgets; they contain famous actors and locations and are normally shown 1-4 times a year e.g. Prime suspect, Trial and Retribution.

Crime dramas are scheduled at later times of the day because some contain stronger images of crime and bad language.

Saniresch shooting for children’s television pro...

Saniresch shooting for children’s television pro...

Day 294 - West Midlands Police - Film project with...

The peak viewing time is 6-10pm and after 9pm (watershed) more disturbing programs are shown. Most crime dramas are shown after 8pm.

Crime dramas have changed a lot over the years. They have shown different types of crime, different visual style, dialogue and sound and the representation of policemen has changed aswell, like in "Dixon of Dock" (50s) it shows the policemen working hard, being honest and reliable, basically they are shown the way people want them to be. They all talk formally with posh accents, they talk one at a time, theres no background sounds and each person takes it in turn to talk. The drama is black and white and the camera cuts from one scene to another. There is only one person shown on screen at a time and it's always the person who is speaking. The victims are rich and live in a posh house.