Top 5 TV Detective Tropes (and How to Subvert Them)

I'm pretty easy to hook on TV. I like murder, mystery, and a detective at their wits' end trying to pull it all together to find justice.

Now, dozens, if not hundreds, of TV shows are like this, and that might be a problem. The thing is, I am also pretty fickle, so if it feels like I've seen it before or the tropes feel tired...I am done with that too.

Aside from being a TV watcher, I'm also a writer, so I am constantly wrestling with my own taste and how to be original because original scripts stand out and get stars.

That's the challenge of everyone trying to create: how can I take something familiar enough that I can sell it but make it unique enough that it is my own?

Today, I want to go over the five most popular tropes of TV detectives and talk about how you can subvert them to make them your own.

Let's dive in.

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1. The Tormented Genius (The "Flawed Hero")

I would venture a guess that, like 99% of detective TV shows, there's a person at the center who is deeply flawed or has some gimmick that makes them a tormented genius.

It's sort of like House, if he were a cop. They have depression; maybe they're a time traveler; there was a show where the cop was Satan himself; there's a lot of these ideas floating around.

• How to Subvert It: Give the detective a healthy personal life. Maybe they love their wife and kids. We see this in Seven, where Brad Pitt is a good guy who gets caught up in a very evil world. You don't need a genius; you just need someone tenacious who's willing to follow the clues, like Fargo’s Molly Solverson. Find your voice in that.

2. The String-and-Pin Conspiracy Board

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