Have all the stories been told? I ask that while acknowledging basic plots, ranging from "a stranger comes to town/the hero goes on a journey" to 20 Master Plots. I understand cop shows use murder as a standard theme -- vicarious excruciating death being one of the strongest stressors a reader identifying with a main character can experience. With that understanding, I'm finding the programs disturbing.
A recent episode of Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior featured a killer who dismembered living victims using a bandsaw. I fast-forwarded through most of the program, and muted other parts. If I wanted to watch a "chainsaw massacre movie," I'd find an original. (so far, no interest on my part) Tonight's CSI's opening showed one man feeding another man a stew sprinkled with diamond-shredded credit card shards and unidentified gross-looking objects, the impression being, the objects were parts of yet a third person. Later, the victim was himself shredded. Contemporary R-rated movies I've seen never reached that level of gore, taking into account that I don't seek out violence. Not even the Stieg Larsson trilogy portrayed deaths so disgustingly.
In today's entertainment, are story lines exhausted? Is carnage required to attract viewers? Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior is already deleted from my DVR queue. CSI is teetering.
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