The original post: /r/television by /u/Guro_Girl on 2026-02-19 00:12:53+00:00.
I tried to look up different posts comparing svu vs criminal minds vs ncis vs csi vs bones vs lie to me, etc and I honestly can’t get a consensus on which show is truly ‘better’ and I’ve come to the conclusion that the answer might depend on what you want to get out of that genre? Would anyone be able to break down all these shows in this type of format, like ‘watch criminal minds if you’re into more elaborate crimes, watch svu if you prefer realism, watch x if you actually want pov from the killer, etc?’
If this helps, I’ve been toying with the idea of a crime novel—it would have one main crime that the characters are trying to solve throughout the book and then a bunch of smaller ones that thread the length of time together. My ultimate goal isn’t realism, but rather excitement. And I personally think that the more wild the conclusion, or different the initial opinion of the crime is to the actual arrest and details of the criminal/crime, the more interesting and suspenseful the story is. I figure that seeing what’s out there would help me simultaneously gauge what’s been done, what does and doesn’t work in a crime procedural but I don’t have time to watch all of these shows that have probably been running for as long as I’ve been alive.
TL;DR what is the smartest crime show you’ve ever watched?
EDIT: the fact that I have yet to get two comments with the same answer is so 😅 please dont attack each other but if you have seen several of the shows that are already in the comments, I would also love further civil discussions on why another show is better than that show, or if you want to second what that person said, that’s cool too