Television programs related to forensic science

An annotated list of television programs related to forensic science.

• American Justice (Documentary, A&E, 1997- ). This long-running nonfiction crime series, hosted by journalist Bill Kurtis, presents evidence from various criminal cases and challenges the viewer to think critically about law-enforcement investigative techniques, the facts of each case, and the constitutional rights of the accused. The cases featured are often controversial, and the program aims to stimulate critical analysis of the evidence and the judicial process, calling into question the snap judgments that casual observers often make about the innocence or guilt of suspects.
• Anatomy of a Crime (Documentary, Court TV, 2000-2002). This show went behind the scenes to look at the fast-paced lives of criminal investigators, often featuring dramatic footage such as the point of view from a police car during a high-speed chase. The program depicted the procedures carried out by police in the course of investigating various kinds of crimes, including human trafficking and drug smuggling. It also raised issues regarding the news and entertainment media’s coverage of crime and related events.
• Arrest & Trial (Documentary, USA, 2000-2001). Each episode of this series used both reenactments and actual footage to follow the stories of real-life crimes from their commission through their investigation and prosecution. The investigative portion of each episode described the uses of forensic science in the case. This program was created by Dick Wolf, who also created the Law & Order dramatic crime series.
• Autopsy (Documentary, HBO, 1994-2006). This program features Dr. Michael Baden, former chief medical examiner of New York City, who has been involved as an expert witness in a number of famous criminal cases, including the O. J. Simpson murder trial. In each episode, Baden explains the autopsy results and other forensic evidence related to a particular death.
• Bones (Drama, Fox, 2005-2017). This series features the criminal cases that come before Dr. Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist, and her team of forensic experts—each a specialist in a particular area—at the fictional Jeffersonian Institute in Washington, D.C. In solving crimes, the team works with Special Agent Seeley Booth of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The crimes that Dr. Brennan and her team investigate are often unusual, and the technologies they use to examine the evidence are highly sophisticated.
• Cold Case (Drama, CBS, 2003-2010). This program focuses on the work of a special team within the Philadelphia Police Department that investigates cold cases—that is, cases in which the leads or evidence trails have gone cold. Many of the crimes investigated in the show are years or even decades old. In each episode, an unsolved crime is somehow brought to the team’s attention, and the investigators take a new look at the old evidence, which can sometimes be reexamined with forensic techniques that have been developed since the crime was committed. The types of forensic evidence that have figured into the program’s plots have included fingerprint analysis, DNA analysis, ballistics, and blood evidence.
• Cold Case Files (Documentary, A&E, 1999- ). This program, hosted by journalist Bill Kurtis, shows the hard work that police investigators put into solving real-life cases that have eluded solution for years, sometimes for decades. Many of the cases featured, which are described through interviews with participants, have been solved through the application of forensic techniques that were not available to investigators at the times the crimes were committed, particularly DNA analysis.
• Crime and Punishment (Documentary, NBC, 2002-2004). This program, created by Dick Wolf, who also created the dramatic crime series Law & Order and its spin-offs, followed the work of district attorneys in San Diego, California, as they prepared and prosecuted actual criminal cases. Unlike many true-crime programs, it used no narration, interviews, or reenactments. Instead, the attorneys were seen carrying out their actual work of interviewing witnesses, gathering evidence, and presenting their cases in court.
• Crime 360 (Documentary, A&E, 2008-2009). This program features the re-creation of crime scenes and the depiction of the likely sequences of events that took place at the scenes through computer-generated imagery (CGI). The details portrayed in the CGI animated segments are based on the information gathered from scientific examination of the evidence in each case.
• Criminal Minds (Drama, CBS, 2005- ). In this program, a team of specialists within the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Behavioral Analysis Unit employs criminal personality profiling to aid local police departments in apprehending serial rapists and murderers. The team members examine crime scenes, analyze victimology, and interview witnesses to understand the motivations and emotional triggers of the criminal perpetrators.
• Crossing Jordan (Drama, NBC, 2001-2007). This series focused on the crime-solving efforts of medical examiners and other specialists working at the Boston medical examiner’s office. In addition to analyzing evidence from autopsies as well as materials found on the bodies that entered their morgue, the characters often visited crime scenes and interviewed witnesses to further their investigations. Many different forensic science techniques and technologies were featured in the program.
• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (Drama, CBS, 2000-2015). This is the program credited with bringing cutting-edge forensic science into American homes while at the same time glamorizing and distorting the work of forensic scientists in the minds of the public. Each episode follows forensic scientists of the Las Vegas Crime Lab as they collect and examine the evidence from one or more crimes and then interpret the evidence to aid the police investigations. The focus is on the use of forensic techniques to determine how the crimes were committed, in contrast to many crime dramas’ emphasis on other investigative techniques. The success of CSI led to multiple spin-off series: CSI: Miami (2002-2012), CSI: NY (2004-2013), CSI: Cyber (2015-2016), and CSI: Vegas (2021- ). The latter is a reboot of the original series.
• Dr. G: Medical Examiner (Documentary, Discovery Health Channel, 2004-2012). Featuring Dr. Jan Garavaglia, a forensic pathologist who works out of a county medical examiner’s office in Orlando, Florida, this show demonstrates the various forensic procedures used to investigate mysterious or suspicious deaths, including toxicology screening and autopsy. Most of the cases described relate to criminal events.
• The First 48 (Documentary, A&E, 2004- ). The title of this program refers to the importance of speed in police efforts to solve crimes or find missing persons. Each episode offers unprecedented access to homicide detectives during the first forty-eight hours after a murder is committed, following the investigators and observing their evidence-gathering techniques during this crucial period.
• Forensic Files (Documentary, Court TV, 1996-2011). Each episode of this program discusses the forensic techniques used in the analysis of evidence from a given crime or mysterious death. Using dramatic reenactments and interviews, the program shows how forensic science provides investigators with the information they need to solve cases.
• In Justice (Drama, ABC, 2006). Inspired by the work of the Innocence Project, this short-lived series was a departure from other crime-based dramas in that it focused on the cases of persons convicted of crimes they did not commit. The investigators and attorneys of the fictional National Justice Project attempted in each episode to overturn the conviction of a wrongfully incarcerated person. Team members reinvestigated the crime, sometimes finding new evidence. They also reexamined old evidence, in some cases applying forensic techniques that had been unavailable at the time of the person’s original trial, particularly DNA analysis.
• Law & Order (Drama, NBC, 1990- ). This program, the longest-running crime show in television history, explores the two major sides of the American criminal justice system’s response to crime: The first half of each episode is devoted to the police investigation of a crime, usually a homicide, and the second half focuses on the legal issues involved in the prosecution of the suspect arrested by the police. In the first half, the New York City police detectives are usually guided in their investigation, at least in part, by an autopsy report on the victim from a forensic pathologist as well as reports from various crime lab technicians regarding their analyses of the evidence gathered from the crime scene (such as ballistic evidence and fingerprints). The courtroom scenes in the second half of the show often touch on issues of evidence admissibility and the presentation of forensic evidence by expert witnesses.
• Law & Order: Criminal Intent (Drama, NBC, 2001-2011). This spin-off series focuses on psychological techniques of criminal investigation, which include behavioral profiling and forensic psychology. Although the detectives of the New York City Police Department’s Major Case Squad also rely on autopsy reports and other information provided by forensic specialists who examine physical evidence in their cases, this program is concerned primarily with the motivations of persons who commit crimes and the need for investigators to understand those motivations.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (Drama, NBC, 1999- ). This spin-off series depicts the work of a special New York Police Department unit that is devoted to the investigation of sexually based crimes, such as rape, incest, and child pornography. The program highlights how medical personnel use rape kits to gather evidence from victims following sexual assault and how DNA analysis and other forensic techniques can be applied to the conviction of sexual offenders.
• Medical Detectives (Documentary, TLC, 1995-1999). This program featured real cases in which medical investigators attempted to solve criminal cases with very little information to go on. In 2000, Court TV (now truTV) picked up this series and widened its scope to create Forensic Files.
• NCIS (Drama, CBS, 2003- ). This program features the work of a team from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which investigates crimes involving members of the US Navy or Marines. The team includes a forensic specialist, a computer scientist, and a medical examiner, and their analyses of the evidence play a large role in guiding each investigation. It launched several spinoff series: NCIS: Los Angeles (2009-2023), NCIS: Hawai'i (2021-2024), NCIS: New Orleans (2014-2021), NCIS: Sydney (2023- ), and NCIS: Origins (2024- ).
• The New Detectives (Documentary, Discovery Channel, 1996-1999). This program featured the work of world-renowned forensic scientists and depicted how they used everything from anthropological data to high-tech forensic screening devises to solve crimes around the United States.
• Quincy, M.E. (Drama, NBC, 1976-1983). One of the first programs to deal with forensic science, this show focused on the crime-solving activities of a medical examiner who worked to collect evidence on suspicious deaths that occurred in the Los Angeles area. The lead character’s skills enabled him to uncover clues from the smallest pieces of evidence. Although it originally presented stories involving typical criminal events, many later episodes emphasized political and social injustices in the American criminal justice system.
• Snapped (Documentary, Oxygen, 2004- ). This series focuses on the cases of real-life women who committed horrendous crimes, including the murders of their husbands, their husbands’ mistresses, and their children. Although much of each episode is devoted to discussion of the drama surrounding the lives of the women who committed these crimes, some attention is given to the investigative techniques used by law-enforcement agencies to solve the crimes.
• Unsolved Mysteries (Documentary, NBC, 1987-2002). This program, hosted by actor Robert Stack, presented the known facts related to a variety of unsolved criminal cases as well as cases of missing persons and paranormal phenomena. It featured interviews with persons involved in the cases as well as dramatic reenactments. Viewers were encouraged to contribute any information that could help solve the cases presented, and many did. It has been estimated that nearly 40 percent of the cases featured on the program were solved through help from viewers.
• Women’s Murder Club (Drama, ABC, 2007-2008). This program, set in San Francisco, featured a group of four women—a police inspector, an assistant district attorney, a reporter, and a medical examiner—who worked together to solve cases of homicide. The information provided by the medical examiner often played an important role in guiding the investigations.

"The Mastermind Behind 'CSI' Turns the Franchise to a New Direction with Unscripted CBS Series." US News & World Report, 25 June 2024, www.usnews.com/news/entertainment/articles/2024-06-25/the-mastermind-behind-csi-turns-the-franchise-to-a-new-direction-with-unscripted-cbs-series. Accessed 19 Aug. 2024.

Miller, Melissa T. "Reality vs. Hollywood: Forensic Science." Fleet Science Center Blog, Sept. 2020, www.fleetscience.org/blog/2020/09/reality-vs-hollywood-forensic-science. Accessed 19 Aug. 2024.