Talk:Procedural drama

How the hell is Ghost Whisperer a procedural? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.103.162.70 (talk) 08:05, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

I was under the impression that a "police procedural" was so named because the show's story focuses on the "procedures" involved in actual police work, not because the episodes are self-contained. I further assumed that all "procedural dramas" had stories focusing primarily on procedures: medical procedures, legal procedures, etc.

Using the term "procedural" to describe a show with self-contained episodes doesn't make sense to me. What does the word "procedure" have to do with that particular format? Is it possible that because shows focusing on detailed procedures tend to be inherently episodic that the two ideas have been somehow conflated? --98.148.115.61 (talk) 11:27, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Here are some shows that feature mainly self-contained episodes but would not qualify as "procedural" by my definition:


 * Gunsmoke
 * Star Trek
 * The A Team
 * Charlie's Angels
 * Knight Rider
 * Quantum Leap
 * MacGyver
 * Fantasy Island
 * Murder, She Wrote
 * Monk
 * Stargate SG-1

By the definition given in the wikipedia article, these are all procedural dramas because of their episodic nature. I don't believe the term "procedural drama" was meant to apply to these shows. --98.148.115.61 (talk) 10:14, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Should I just go ahead and fix the article? --98.148.115.61 (talk) 09:53, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you MusicTree3 for the update. 76.90.129.1 (talk) 19:32, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Is this article intentionally separate from the Procedural (genre) article? I'm confused about whether there's really a difference going on? —98.201.105.80 (talk) 13:57, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Non-crime series?
The opening paragraph and the term itself suggest that "procedural drama" would apply to a variety of subject matters, but then the article quickly shifts to a laser focus on crime/police/legal programs. Isn't something like House a procedural drama just as much as CSI is? Chris3145 (talk) 23:54, 18 November 2020 (UTC)