Getting Netflix was probably one of the best ideas I’ve had in a long time. For the past few months, I’ve spent my downtime binge-watching old crime documentaries from the ‘90s. Back at the peak of my career, I’d consider myself lucky if I caught them when they were on, but today, I could just waste an entire lazy afternoon watching episodes of “New Detectives” or “Medical Detectives” (later titled “Forensic Files”).
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| Image source: criminalelement.com |
I appreciate a good police procedural and courtroom drama, and many of these documentaries deliver, and then some. One advantage these docs have over their fictitious counterparts is by being documentaries, they showcase real cases and use actual forensic procedures in the proper context. They tended to depict police investigations accurately.
“Forensic Files” is a perennial favorite. Narrated by the late Peter Thomas (who was already 72 when the program began), it featured dramatizations and then cutting-edge reconstructions of many high-profile murders, along with the science used to identify them. Each of the bad guys caught (and each falsely accused person later exonerated) were real. Of course, there were episodes where no criminal was caught because there weren’t any criminals at all; famous from what I can remember from the show’s original title “Medical Detectives” is their episode investigating a mysterious illness now known as Legionnaire's disease.
The fact that many of these programs showed real timetables (cases take years to solve in some instances) and real science can make these shows a great learning tool for writers who want to create detective fiction. They may even be a good gateway to forensics for people who want to become detectives themselves.
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| Image source: TVTropes.org |
I’m Adam Smith, a retired banker, traveler, and avid fan of crime and courtroom dramas from Martha’s Vineyard. Follow me on Twitter for more on my thoughts on crime fiction.
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