Emmys go to the serial tales, but longevity often goes to procedurals

J.J. Abrams had to concede.

He'd overseen four seasons of "Felicity" and five of "Alias," he'd kicked off "Lost" at ABC (then stepped away after Season 1). But when he landed at Fox last year with "Fringe," things changed.

"One of the problems I've faced in the shows I've worked on is that people say, 'I tried to follow it, then I had no idea what was going on, so I stopped,' " Abrams says. "Even by the end of the second season of 'Alias,' ABC made it clear they didn't want a serialized show -- and we'd better make everything stand-alone, stand-alone, stand-alone."

So with "Fringe" (though he insists Fox "never mandated anything"), Abrams decided, "Let's do something that's a little more inviting and, hopefully, understood."

That's how one of broadcast television's most creative lights created, in essence, a procedural.

There's a silent war going on in television drama between arc-driven "serial" shows that feature intricate, ongoing stories and the stand-alones, largely crime or legal series that begin and end a story within each hourlong episode. Just look at the stats: Since 2000, five dramas have earned best show Emmys: "The West Wing," "The Sopranos," "24," "Lost" and "Mad Men." Not a procedural among them.

But look at the longest-running shows on television today (see sidebar), and a dichotomy emerges -- when it comes to dramas, either you're produced by Jerry Bruckheimer or Dick Wolf or you're "24" -- covering the spread by being both long-running and a recent Emmy winner.

In fact, successful nonprocedurals are the exception rather than the rule on broadcast TV these days.

"The problem for the broadcast network is they still have to do mainstream programming," explains Naren Shankar, executive producer of CBS' "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." "Cable can do niche programming -- the best drama at last year's Emmys was 'Mad Men,' which people love, but the audience for that show is very small. For a mainstream audience, procedurals are highly conducive for the audiences they want to attract."

Theories abound as to why audiences love the procedural, though for Wolf, the man behind the three "Law & Order" series on NBC and USA, it's simple: "Closed-ended stories tend to do well because viewers can come and go as they please. You don't have to keep track of who is sleeping with who, who is having a personal crisis."