Shows like Person of Interest and Fringe really make me miss the days of shows with procedural elements and 20+ episode seasons

I recently finished watching Person of Interest and loved it so much that I would put it up there as one of my favourite shows, alongside prestige TV giants like Mad Men, The Wire, Breaking Bad etc. I'm currently about halfway through Fringe and really loving it as well.

Honestly my favourite thing about these shows is…how much of it is available to me lol. Over the past few years I've gotten so used to shows having like 6-10 episode seasons (and massive waits in between), that it feels almost weird to open up a season of PoI and Fringe and see that I have more than 20 instalments per season.

Now obviously some of these episodes are strictly "case of the week" and don't always tie in to the main narrative/larger plot line but honestly, I actually like that. It's nice for some of these episodes to just be a well-told one-off where the writers can just give us something self-contained not beholden to moving the main plot forward. More importantly though, they are effective at further developing the characters and creating more of an investment towards them.

PoI is a great example of this – throughout its 5 seasons it definitely had some more procedural episodes that felt either like filler or just weren't very strong storytelling-wise, but they did a great job of getting you more attached to the characters so that you truly come to care about what happens to them. And I find that to be the same for Fringe as well.

Another great example is Lost – which might be the ultimate when it comes to "journey over destination" and being a show where the characters were so important.

Honestly I'll even be satisfied with 13-episode seasons because a lot of the "peak" shows like Breaking Bad, Sopranos, The Wire etc. did just that, and still managed to create unforgettable stories and characters. And I feel like even those shows had episodes here and there that could be seen as one-offs focusing more on developing the characters and the world they reside as opposed to strict plot movement.