A Summer of Watching Police Procedurals

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 20:54:42 +0000

The summer of 2025 was my last free summer before I was thrown into the abyss that is grad school. I left my job in May, and thought to myself– ah, yes! The summer I get to my TBR, a summer to truly read. But instead, I found myself learning how to swim and then spending the rest of the day watching Police Procedurals. From the depths of Amazon Prime and Netflix, I unearthed shows titled Rizzoli and Isles, Castle, Bones, and Cold Cases. All were set in the US, in different parts of the country– in Boston, New York City, DC, and Philadelphia. Police procedurals often begin with a rather predictable set of events. Rich civilian consultants who just love solving puzzles; a detective with a dead parent/sibling/partner; a vast conspiracy to shut down honest investigation, and of course, a sometimes lazy love story to give the female detective an opportunity to retain her appeal to the male viewers by appearing desirable and hot.