BY MY ROUGH COUNT, there are 13 procedural crime shows on network television right now; they represent the only significant dramatic challenge to the plague of reality television that has descended on our landscape. Consider that the four networks have 77 hours of primetime space to fill every week (ABC, NBC, and CBS each have 21 hours, Fox has only 14 hours). A few of these hours are taken up by news magazines, such as Dateline, Primetime Live, and 48 Hours. Most of the hole is filled with entertainment programming. These days, “entertainment” has become synonymous with “reality,” which is synonymous with “bottom-feeding, fame-obsessed trash.”

So virulent is the reality outbreak–some 26 strains of it air every week–that conventional-scripted series have been reduced to an afterthought. Consider this: Network television features only a few more half-hour sitcoms than it does hour-long procedural crime dramas. Yet the overall quality of these cop shows is so rickety that it would not be unfair to suggest that proliferation of crime–think Crossing Jordan, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Numb3rs, etc.–has become a plague in its own right.