The Evidence

We've seen it all before | Gene Edward Veith

The typical programming philosophy of TV executives is overkill. Find a successful show, turn it into a formula, then keep replicating it. In the "police procedural" genre, we follow law enforcement officials as they do their work, interview witnesses, and collect evidence until they solve the crime. This is an intrinsically interesting kind of story, turned into gripping television with Law and Order programs. A variation also hit it big, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, solving crimes with forensic science. Spin-off shows do the same in Miami and New York.

The latest, The Evidence (ABC, Wednesdays, 10:00 p.m. ET), consists of conventions that have pretty much run out of steam.

The show begins with a close-up of various objects in an evidence room, with a voiceover listing what they are ("item: human finger, severed"). Then a flashback shows the crime and the investigation. When each bit of evidence comes up in the storyline, the camera zeros in and cuts to the evidence room, lest we miss what it is. By the end of the story, all of the evidence fits together like pieces in a puzzle.