Talk:Police procedural

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[edit] vs. Crime Drama

"Crime drama" links in other articles come here. While the police procedural is a dominant form within the "crime drama" umbrella, not all crime drama is police procedural ... for instance, "The Sopranos," which links to this page, is certainly a crime drama but most certainly Not a police procedural.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by NewProvidence (talk • contribs) 18:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Added reference to Ed McBain/Evan Hunter dying. Then I cried, because, well, Ed Mcbain is dead. Manticore 13:15, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Should Sjöwall and Wahlöö be included?82.92.181.129 01:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] In need of attention?

"This article is in need of attention. More information may be available on the article's talk page."

I've removed this tag added by User:Nydas because I don't see anything wrong with the text. Is it the content? The structure? The layout? Is anything important missing from the article? I hate to think of people working to improve an aspect of a text the {{attention}} adder didn't have in mind when calling attention to the article. <KF> 19:43, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

The article struck me as half-finished on several levels. There's nothing drastically wrong with it, but there's nothing particularly right with it either. The layout is odd - the written section is formatted differently from the TV section, for example. The writing is bitty and not that great - least of all my own edits. The history section is very small, and could use some expert attention. The top ten lists are out of date and filled with dead links - are they worthy of inclusion? Some pictures might be nice, as well. Finally, the police procedural section in the detective fiction article has a markedly different opinion on what constitutes a procedural. And there's probably lots more that I haven't noticed - hence the attention tag. I'm fairly new to Wikipedia so I wasn't aware that it was deemed essential to explain reasons for adding an attention tag, I just wanted to stimulate some interest in the article.--Nydas 22:00, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. At least I can see much more clearly now. Well, I guess the best thing to do is wait for one or two others to join in the discussion. My only contribution to this text was the top ten lists, which I added for historical reasons (what you consider out of date, while at the same time you think the history section is too small). Earlier novels are easily forgotten, so mentioning them might be an incentive for someone to write about them. (I just had a look at http://gadetection.pbwiki.com/ , which is exclusively dedicated to the Golden Age.) Anyway, feel free to overhaul the article. Best wishes, <KF> 23:18, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I would be interested in your opinion on whether the article is correct in asserting that a police procedural must detail the activities of a team of officers, as opposed to a having single police protagonist. I'd say that it's perfectly legit to have a single main protagonist in a procedural, as long as that character interacts with other officers in a police-like manner, in a police setting.--Nydas 11:18, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Difficult to say, I'm not an expert in this field. It could be that by definition ("police procedural"), the police are seen as a team, not just one loner. Whatever, I'm afraid I can't really be of help here. <KF> 14:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Pretty sure police can be used in the singular as well as the plural (somewhat like the word "religious" to refer to a single worshiper). On Homicide phrases like "he was a good police" pop up fairly often. My gut tells me this article should still mostly refer to teams of police working together, though.
"Police" in the context of the term "police procedural" refers to the profession of law enforcement, not necessarily to whether or not the police in a police procedural work as a team or as a single operative. For example, there are, in the United States, over 300 police departments that consist of one single officer. If a mystery writer wrote a novel depicting such a department, would it follow that it's not a police procedural simply because it depicts the operations of a one-officer force? Surely not. The defining element is neither teamwork nor the lack of teamwork, but whether or not the police work is depicted authentically (or, at the very least, with the illusion of authenticity).