Calling a show better than The Rookie is a high bar. ABC’s long-running procedural has found the sweet spot between comfort television and weekly suspense, balancing Nathan Fillion’s effortless charm with cases that move quickly enough to make “just one more episode” an easy promise to break. Eight seasons in, the formula still works. And the recent renewal for Season 9 proves audiences are not ready to leave John Nolan behind.
It goes without saying that crime thrillers have been one of TV’s most reliable genres for decades, which also makes them one of the easiest to misjudge. After you’ve spent time watching enough of them, the pattern becomes obvious. You know when a case exists only to fill 40 minutes and when it’s exposing something deeper about the people solving it. You notice which shows recycle the same ideas and which ones redefine what the format can do. While The Rookie lands comfortably in the first group, the 10 shows on this list belong in the second.
Why You Should Trust Me: Procedural crime drama is one of my main beats at MovieWeb. I have covered dozens of shows in this space, from Bosch to Reacher to Jack Ryan. I’ve tracked the genre across decades and read widely enough crime thriller novels to know where TV procedurals come from and what the best ones achieve.
‘Bones’ (2005 – 2017)
Twelve Seasons of Forensic Crime and One of TV’s Best Procedural Partnerships
Watch This If: Bones runs for 12 seasons. While that sounds daunting, the show follows the case-of-the-week format, which means you can dip in almost anywhere without losing the plot. What justifies the longevity is the dynamic between forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan and FBI agent Seeley Booth. As two people who solve murders together and spend the better part of a decade pretending they do not have feelings for each other, they also make for one of the best will-they-won’t-they on television. I personally adore Brennan. She’s hyper-rational, emotionally literal, and totally uninterested in behaving the way people expect. If The Rookie is your comfort watch, Bones offers all of that with stronger character work and a lot more dead bodies.
Skip This If: Twelve seasons is a genuine commitment, and the show gets uneven around Seasons 9 and 10. If you want tight, serialized plotting with no filler, this is not it. The procedural-of-the-week structure means some episodes are weaker than others, and the later seasons lean into soap opera territory.
‘Elementary’ (2012 – 2019)
The Modern Sherlock Holmes Adaptation Nobody Talks About
Watch This If: Elementary spent most of its run in the shadow of Sherlock, but the two series have very different goals. Instead of treating Holmes like the main event, Elementary relocates him to contemporary New York, makes Watson a woman (Lucy Liu, who is excellent), and commits to the procedural format. Johnny Lee Miller’s Holmes is a recovering addict working for the NYPD, and the show takes the addiction angle seriously. The cases are clever, the central relationship develops slowly, and the show has a very impressive late-period run in Seasons 5 and 6. You’re going to miss out if you stop watching after Season 3.
Skip This If: Elementary does not have the visual flair or the dramatic ambition that made Sherlock so popular back in the day. It is a network procedural that follows network procedural conventions, and purists who want Holmes to feel like the main event will not find it here.
‘Kojak’ (1973 – 1978)
Telly Savalas Invented a Television Archetype and Never Got Enough Credit for It
Watch This If: Kojak was shot on location in New York in the early 1970s, when the city was broke, exhausted, and coming apart, and the show isn’t afraid to portray it as it is. I’ve personally never watched a show set in New York that looks like Kojak does. It is grimy, unglamorous, shot in actual precincts and actual streets with an authenticity that the genre had not figured out how to manufacture yet. Telly Savalas’ Lieutenant Kojak is so embedded in pop culture by now that it is easy to forget how astonishing and relentless he is. As for the crimes, they grow naturally out of this world and touch on poverty, corruption, and addiction. Believe it or not, The Rookie is a direct descendant of Kojak.
Skip This If: It is a 1970s network drama, and that means the pacing and production values are going to test you if you’ve grown up on streaming. Some episodes creak. Some of the social attitudes have aged badly. But the best episodes of Kojak are as sharp as anything in the genre, and if you have any interest in understanding the roots of procedural TV, this is the primary source.
‘Law & Order’ (1990 – 2010, 2022 – Present)
Made The Template for Every Crime Procedural That Came After
Watch This If: It’s easy to forget how much Law & Order changed television because so many shows copied it. Dick Wolf invented the split structure, where police investigate the crime before prosecutors take over, and it became the template for an entire generation of procedurals. Comparisons to The Rookie are impossible to avoid, but the legal half is what sets Law & Order apart. Instead of treating the arrest as the finish line, the show asks whether justice is actually possible once the case reaches court. Those kinds of questions rarely have easy answers, which gives the courtroom scenes unmatched intensity. Seasons 3 through 10, particularly the Sam Waterson era, are known for their consistency.
Skip This If: A show with 20+ seasons is not a starting point. It will rob you of a life. My advice is to just pick a random season and dive in rather than trying to watch from the beginning. The earlier seasons have notably lower production values, and some of the cases that felt ripped from the headlines in 1992 now just feel dated. The revival is solid, but again, it’s not peak Law & Order.
‘Cagney & Lacey’ (1982 – 1988)
The Show That Proved Female Cops Could Carry a Serious Drama… in 1982
Watch This If: It’s no surprise that some of my favorite modern crime thrillers are female-led. Broadchurch, Happy Valley, and Mare of Easttown are to name a few. But back in 1982, the idea of one built around two very different detectives, Christine Cagney and Mary Beth Lacey, was radical. CBS canceled Cagney & Lacey after six episodes before audience response forced a reversal. And then, the show turned into an honest exploration of what it means to be a working woman in law enforcement at a very specific moment in American History. The show sheds light on Cagney and Lacey’s friendship, their ambitions, and the obstacles in their way, along with the cases they solve. And it’s highly addictive to watch.
Skip This If: The show is a product of its time, and it’s occasionally visible. Some episodes lean into issue-of-the-week storytelling, and it may feel dated. And while the production values are firmly rooted in the ‘80s, the writing is sharp enough that most of this fades within a few episodes. The outstanding performances from Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless make it easy to ignore those limitations too.
‘Criminal Minds’ (2005 – 2020)
The FBI Profiler Format Makes Every Case More Disturbing Than the Average Procedural
Watch This If: Criminal Minds follows the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit as they investigate cases by building psychological profiles of whoever committed them. While most crime thrillers begin with the investigators, this one begins with the killer, and that one choice changes everything. The Rookie would never attempt something like that. The best episodes of Criminal Minds are disturbing in ways that feel purposeful rather than exploitative, and the ensemble is large enough that multiple characters can carry the weight of the narrative simultaneously. If you have only watched The Rookie and shows in that genre, Criminal Minds will show you how dark the genre can get.
Skip This If: The show gets uneven in the middle run, and the later seasons are noticeably weaker than the first five. Some of the cases tip into exploitation territory, and it gets uncomfortable to watch. Criminal Minds goes places The Rookie never would, so if dark subject matter is not your thing, this is not the procedural for you.
‘Bosch’ (2014 – 2021)
Titus Welliver Plays the Best TV Detective of the Streaming Era
Watch This If: I have covered Bosch extensively, and it’s the show I bring up whenever someone asks what a streaming crime thriller looks like when it is not trying to do everything for everyone. Titus Welliver plays Harry Bosch as an LAPD detective who is brilliant at his job and difficult in almost every other context. His morals are intact; he’s a complicated person, and he’s an exhausting person to be around. But he holds up across seven seasons. Michael Connelly’s novels are the source material, and the show treats them with real fidelity while building a version of Los Angeles that feels authentic and lived in. The cases are good, the performances are layered, and the show does not care about TV constraints the way The Rookie has to.
Skip This If: Bosch values character over momentum and moves at a deliberate pace. So if you want a procedural that hits a new development every ten minutes, this will annoy you. The first season takes three episodes to properly establish its tone. Stick with it.
‘Line of Duty’ (2012 – 2021)
The Best British Crime Drama of the Last Twenty Years Is Also the Most Stressful
Watch This If: Line of Duty follows AC-12, an anti-corruption unit within a British police force, and the whole idea is to investigate a different bent cop from inside the same institution every season. The format is brilliant because it means the show can rotate its central antagonist while keeping its core three investigators – Ted Hastings, Steve Arnott, Kate Fleming – consistent across six seasons. The interrogation sequences are truly thrilling. I am not being hyperbolic: the central interview scenes in Line of Duty are constructed with so much tension you’re going to want to touch grass and connect with nature after you finish a season. Seasons 5 and 6, in particular, have scenes where characters who know procedure and know each other are trying to trap each other within the formalities of a police interview, which I think is phenomenal.
Skip This If: Line of Duty requires full attention. The procedural detail, such as police codes, institutional terminology, and the logic of an anti-corruption investigation, is not explained for viewers who want to follow along casually. This is a show you watch with total concentration, and if you miss things, you miss things.
‘Hill Street Blues’ (1981 – 1987)
The Show That Invented Modern Television Drama
Watch This If: It’s almost impossible to overstate the influence of Hill Street Blues. At a time when most network dramas reset every week, Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll created an ensemble series where storylines carried over, characters evolved, and actions had consequences long after an episode ended. The police work mattered, but the precinct was full of characters who had lives outside the profession, and no single protagonist controlled the story. The approach reshaped television, and its DNA still runs through shows like The Rookie. More importantly, it still holds up as a drama 40 years later.
Skip This If: The first season is rough, and it reflects how new the format was at the time. Bochco was inventing something he had not fully worked out yet, and you can feel it in some of the early episodes. The show also has 20+ episodes per season, which is a lot, and the ensemble is large enough that it can take time to understand who matters and why. But the investment pays off.
‘Homicide: Life on the Street’ (1993 – 1999)
The Greatest Crime Procedural Ever Made Still Doesn’t Get the Recognition It Deserves
Watch This If: NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Street spans seven seasons. It was based on the year David Simon spent embedded with the Baltimore homicide unit and is the direct inspiration for The Wire. Same city, same institution, some of the same people. Adapted from Simon’s non-fiction book, the series strips away the glamor that defines so much of the genre. Investigations are frustrating and often inconclusive; detectives lose cases, witnesses lie, and the system does not deliver justice on schedule. The ensemble is amazing. Andre Braugher’s Frank Pembleton anchors the show, and I guarantee you that an interrogation scene with Braugher on the other side of the table is something you will not forget. The Rookie is a good show, but Homicide is the greatest of all time.
Skip This If: Homicide is a ‘90s crime drama, and it looks like one. The production values are not going to seduce anyone who comes to it from something made in the 2020s. The pacing is slow in places because it is committed to the actual rhythms of investigative work. The later seasons, particularly Season 7, are weaker than what came before. Even so, Homicide remains the benchmark against which I measure every procedural I’ve watched since.
Which procedural crime thriller do you think deserves a spot on the list? Let us know in the comments!
- Release Date
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October 16, 2018
- Network
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ABC
- Showrunner
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Alexi Hawley
- Directors
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Tori Garrett, Chi-Yoon Chung, Michael Goi, Sylvain White, Lisa Demaine, Lanre Olabisi, Bill Johnson, David McWhirter, Liz Friedlander, Daniel Willis, Toa Fraser, Anne Renton, Jon Huertas, Cherie Nowlan, TK Shom, Rob Seidenglanz, Valerie Weiss, Barbara Brown, Charissa Sanjarernsuithikul, SJ Main Muñoz, Nelson McCormick, Marcus Stokes, Adam Davidson, Anna Mastro
- Writers
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Corey Miller, Bill Rinier, Zoe Cheng, Mary Trahan, Ally Seibert, Liz Alper, Nick Hurwitz, Racheal Seymour, Madeleine Coghlan, David Radcliff
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