How Broadcast Networks are Using Procedurals as the Gateway to Innovative Storytelling

We all know the concept of adapting or dying. 

Television as a medium has been forced to do that for decades, and with the introduction of streaming and its subsequent upswing since then, it’s been a difficult path for network television. 

The irony isn’t lost when you consider that most of a streamer’s content isn’t original programming but acquisitions of previous or already established network shows. 

Network television is the basis for television, no matter how elitist some like to behave about its existence and what it offers.

Audiences Critiquing Procedurals Actually Crave Everything Procedurals Provide

It’s safe to say that network television is the battleground for content, and even setting precedence for our favorite streaming series isn’t on the streamers themselves but on broadcast television. 

There has been discourse about the state of television as a medium recently. So much of it began during the pandemic when confined to our homes for the better part of the year, millions of us lost ourselves in television of all caliber for entertainment. 

And now, when it comes to comfort television that carries us through the week, lulls us to sleep, or provides us something to distract us from life’s woes, it’s rarely recent series that have that appeal. 

No, people are turning to the familiarity and, yes, procedural tone of series from a decade ago or longer. 

It wasn’t some random six-episode and three-season series that had a renaissance on Netflix, but Suits. It was a nine-season legal thriller that boasted more than ten episodes every season. 

And no matter how sleek, thrilling, and unique the series feels to the new audience it acquired recently, it IS a procedural. 

Procedurals Have Become the Deceptive Gateway to Innovative Series and Storytelling

A personal comfort show, Scandal, started as a political procedural and evolved into one of the most insane, unpredictable, outrageous, and influential pieces of television of the century. 

No, I’m not exaggerating; Kerry Washington simply helming the series as a Black woman was monumental as it hadn’t happened since 40 years prior. 

What Scandal evolved into, as it lost many of its procedural elements, proves my point. 

Procedurals are the gateway to telling more creative, unique, compelling, and original character-driven stories. 

You can consider them a Trojan horse if you will.

Scandal was able to lure the general audience that tunes into broadcast television weekly with the procedural formatting they’re accustomed to and then flip the script to deliver one of the most innovative series of our time. 

It combined the best traits of soap operas with the fast-paced (and speech cadence) of some of the best streaming and limited series, and it delivered on that every week. 

Scandal was a phenomenon that ushered in the live-tweeting stage of television viewing, the modern version of the watercooler talk in real-time, generating a new phase of the fandom experience. 

Yes, a procedural did that. And it’s something that wouldn’t have happened if audiences didn’t give it a chance to do so. 

The Best Television Lies Behind Procedural Formatting

Some of the best television you’re not watching lies on network TV and appears as that pesky procedural formatting many proclaim to be tired of or above. 

To be fair to those naysayers, we are inundated now with a zillion different versions of cop, legal, medical, and first responder shows because we are. 

On the surface, network is saturated with these common themes and little else. It is offputting for audiences, especially if they aren’t inclined to tune into those types of shows in the first place. 

I’m not saying you’re wrong for rolling your eyes at a roster that feels like “Rinse, Wash, Repeat.” However, I am saying that sometimes, there’s a method behind the madness, or in this case, the redundancy. 

Greenlighting a series is a herculean task these days. When you combine that with the near-impossible expectations placed on a show to produce fantastic ratings and find a devoted audience instantly, it’s how we’re in a predicament now. 

Network television loves a sure thing, and many types of procedurals guarantee that, whether it’s IP, reboots, revivals, or million first responders shows. 

When networks find something that works and can rely on a consistent and devoted audience, they’ll practically run that into the ground. 

Or, they’ll get creative in how they tell stories. The trick to finding so much of the content you crave as a viewer is a willingness to look beyond a series’ dressing. 

A New Era of Blue Sky Proves Network TV is Strategic about Procedurals and Succeeds

By now, procedurals are just a package to deliver on other things, and if that hasn’t been abundantly clear, the re-emergence of Blue Sky Dramas is a prime example. 

High Potential is a perfect example of a series that positions itself as a procedural, so it can deliver on so much more than that. If you want intrigue, genuine comedy, and family elements, High Potential has it on a silver platter. 

Yes, they have the wonky concept of a working-class neurodivergent genius assisting the police, but give that description a once over and then tell me that it’s your parents or grandparents’ “boring” procedural. 

It isn’t. High Potential uses familiar formatting to take bold risks, and it pays off weekly. The series is the strongest and most successful to emerge from 2024. 

High Potential has all the humor and quirkiness of a traditional sitcom with the intriguing characters of a dramedy. And the depth in which it delves into some (though tragically not all) characters is a marker of this series’ success. 

What initially read as a gimmick, with Morgan working alongside the police, unfurls into something far more compelling that keeps us tuning in every week. 

The Modern Procedural Improves on Traditional Formatting with In-Depth Character Exploration

Meanwhile, series like NCIS: Origins capitalize on the familiar as an extension of a successful franchise while also perfecting a novel approach.

NCIS: Origins combines much of what people love about the original series’ formatting with solving cases and standout characters. But has a deceptively modern balance of prioritizing the characters first. 

It’s especially gratifying because the series manages to explore complex emotions and mental health among characters who don’t traditionally have the space to showcase them authentically. 

Very few series on air, network, or streaming have consistently done this well at covering grief extensively, as we’ve seen with a young Leroy Jethro Gibbs. 

Few series subvert toxic masculinity while highlighting such a distinctly masculine character like Mike Franks. We continue to rave about what Kyle Schmid brings to the role as a series set in the past succeeds at being authentically progressive without being preachy.

It’s not something reserved for new series, either. It’s a formatting that established series have leaned into as well. Networks continue to broaden the scope of what modern procedurals can do with storytelling. 

The Fundamentals of Great Storytelling and Innovation Exist Behind Network’s “Safest” Genre

One of the many reasons we’re raving about Chicago PD this season is it has finally found the perfect balance, serving as a traditional cop procedural while also deep-diving into its characters and their relationships. 

It results in a more personal season as we learn new things and explore characters, some of whom we’ve spent 12 years with and still didn’t really “know.”

People unfamiliar with 9-1-1 would be shocked to learn and fully grasp that the series is pure absurdity. Sure, there’s something formulaic about a station going on calls. 

But then, one has to consider the call they’re on. It’s a Ryan Murphy show, after all, so in many ways, the series combines genre television with a traditional procedural to dizzying and batshit results. 

If you aren’t tuning into 9-1-1 (or its spinoffs), you’re missing out on the level of absurdity and fun that many often loved about series like Riverdale or the most satirical levels of drama that harken to Desperate Housewives. 

Vestiges of these series and the core of what people loved about them still exist on television, often buried behind procedural window dressing; you need only give it a go. 

Anyone who tunes into Fire Country knows it’s not really about the fires any more than Yellowstone was about just ranching. 

Procedurals are More Than Just Cases of the Week, Dabbling with All Genres At Once

For Fire Country, it’s a family drama masquerading as a firefighting show. It’s a bonafide soap opera covered in soot. 

It’s Virgin River and Sweet Magnolias for the beer-drinking mostly male demographic, and it’s ingenious how it succeeds at its marketing. 

Those who look at Brilliant Minds and only write it off as a medical drama are missing out on, inarguably, some of the best character exploration on a series in years. 

For Brilliant Minds, it’s more than a medical drama where the goal is to use buzz-worthy medical cases of the week to grab viewers. 

In a single season, Brilliant Minds succeeded at a subtler, more compelling, and natural approach to tackling healthcare issues and treating the whole person rather than symptoms than New Amsterdam managed to do in three-fifths of its series. 

Brilliant Mind’s characters and how they overcome their own selection of issues to practice medicine, even using things like their neurodivergence as a tool to heal and help, is exceptional writing. 

The beautiful, compassionate array of flashbacks exploring Oliver’s background as both a gay man and primarily as someone who grew up with the secondhand challenges of mental health issues is profound storytelling. 

Brilliant Minds takes the bones of a procedural to produce some of the most introspective, evocative storytelling on network and streaming combined, with incredible cinematography and direction to match it. 

Character-Centered Storytelling Ushers in a New Era of Procedural Worth Watching

FOX’s new series Doc merely uses the hospital as a background for far richer storytelling and exploring grief, loss, trauma, and human connection.

Doc is more about the “feels” than the medicine,  making it a medicinal salve for the soul in a world that increasingly feels overwhelming and like too much. 

For Doc, the characters, primarily Amy Larsen and her genuine efforts to make use of her second chance at life, are most important. 

We’ve discussed the powerful storytelling that comes from a series like Found. Few series explore trauma in such a raw and layered way. 

It has all the provocative and gritty storytelling of a short streaming series. Its pacing harkens back to primetime’s glory days of Scandal and HTGAWM, with jaw-dropping twists and action during each installment. 

Similarly, it has expanded its role beyond the formulaic centering of neglected cases involving communities who fall through the cracks. 

Now, it peels back layers of each of its characters, completely unafraid of making them unlikable in the process with the goal of showing the complexities and general messiness of the human conditions, our relationships, and the traumas we carry with us. 

Network Gems Prove You Can’t Judge a Series by Its (Procedural) Cover

On the surface, it’s easy to assume that everything television offers looks the same and that procedurals have taken over everything. 

In many ways, that’s true, as a general aversion to risk-taking has unfortunately become the new norm. 

Why step out on a limb and create something truly unique and magical, wishing and hoping that it’ll find an audience when you can cater to a loyal and consistent demographic?

It’s frustrating, especially during a time when networks generally don’t allow anything a chance to find an audience anymore, as instant gratification overtakes patience.

But the workaround is there if you know how to look for it. Until then, one has to see past what feels like more of the same. 

Creators have become clever in how they learn how to pitch or opt to explore more original storytelling under the guise of a regular and “safe” procedural. 

In many ways, it’s the only way we’ve gotten some great stories on broadcast. It also proves how a network’s adaptability contributes to its sustainability as the often unappreciated foundation for television. 

Over to you, TV Fanatics. Have you noticed that the best television right now is hiding behind the unassuming procedural? 

Are you willing to look past a litany of cop, medicine, and first responder series to find the strong or juicy storytelling behind them? Let’s hear your thoughts below!