While there are plenty of successful cop shows on the air, one Prime Video detective series was such a massive hit that the show spawned a sequel, a prequel, and a spinoff after its original run ended. Cop shows have come a long way since the early days of Dragnet, and there is now a police show for every viewer across the genre’s many offerings. From dark psychological thrillers like Mindhunter, Mr. Mercedes, and Hannibal to more lighthearted procedurals like The Rookie and High Potential, the cop show format has spawned endless incarnations in recent decades.
While long-running cop show franchises like Law & Order, CSI, and Criminal Minds are mostly still going strong, the streaming revolution rocked the genre just as much as streaming changed fantasy TV and sci-fi shows. Police procedurals had to adapt and evolve in the era of Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV, and Hulu. Now, new cop shows alter their style and tone to fit an audience who are as likely to binge-watch entire seasons at a time as they are to wait a week between each outing.
While a lot of detective dramas flourished in this context, there is one cop show franchise that stands out as the victor in the streaming wars. Beginning back in 2014, Prime Video’s Bosch lasted seven seasons and released a total of 68 episodes in its original run. Based on The Lincoln Lawyer author Michael Connelly’s novel series of the same name, Bosch followed Titus Welliver’s titular irascible LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch. Brilliant but troubled, Bosch battled personal demons while solving murders in the Hollywood Hills.
Prime Video’s Bosch Spawned Ballard, Bosch: Legacy, and Start of Watch
Welliver’s antihero balanced this work with investigating his own corrupt department, adding another layer of intrigue to the action of the original series. The show debuted to a solid Rotten Tomatoes rating of 78% from critics, but this jumped to a staggering 100% in season 2 and remained near-perfect for the rest of its run. As such, it was no shock when Amazon FreeVee announced a sequel series, Bosch: Legacy, shortly after the original show’s finale.
By the time Bosch: Legacy’s three-season run had finished, the franchise had already announced its first spinoff, Ballard. Starring Maggie Q as the eponymous detective, a colleague Bosch worked with during the original show who specialized in cold cases, Ballard’s 10-episode first season was such a success that it immediately spawned a season 2 renewal. The Bosch franchise grew even further when, during the same month as Ballard season 2’s renewal announcement, Prime Video announced the upcoming prequel Bosch: Start of Watch.
Bosch’s Franchise Success Shows 21st Century Detective Shows How It’s Done
It is impressive when any cop drama can spawn more than a handful of seasons, given how many competitors contemporary detective shows have. It’s even more impressive when a streaming show can sustain a spinoff as well, so the fact that Bosch lasted six seasons and produced a three-season sequel series, a two-season spinoff, and a prequel is truly incredible.
However, the success of the Bosch franchise makes a lot of sense given the show’s unique appeal. Since the entire Bosch franchise lives on Prime Video, the show can feature more mature, R-rated content than a traditional network TV show, and Bosch takes advantage of the streaming service’s looser censorship norms with darker storylines and some boundary-pushing moments of brutality.
That said, where some dark detective dramas like Mare of Easttown, the aforementioned Mindhunter, or True Detective end up completely subverting the usual cop show formula thanks to their edgier, bleaker tones, Bosch still feels more like a traditional procedural with extra grit. The show and its spinoffs function as a darker spin on Law & Order or Criminal Minds rather than an outright deconstruction of cop shows, allowing the successful Bosch franchise to inhabit a uniquely lucrative niche of its own.
- Release Date
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2015 – 2021-00-00
- Network
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Prime Video
- Showrunner
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Eric Ellis Overmyer
- Directors
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Alex Zakrzewski, Ernest R. Dickerson, Patrick Cady, Aaron Lipstadt, Adam Davidson, Daisy von Scherler Mayer, Kevin Dowling, Neema Barnette, Tim Hunter, Zetna Fuentes, Christine Moore, Jim McKay, Laura Belsey, Matt Earl Beesley, Phil Abraham, Roxann Dawson, Sarah Pia Anderson, Stephen Gyllenhaal, Tara Nicole Weyr, Thomas Carter, Hagar Ben-Asher
- Writers
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Jeffrey Alan Fiskin, Tom Bernardo, Elle Johnson, John Mankiewicz, Shaz Bennett, Alex Meenehan, Katie Pyne, Osokwe Vasquez, Lolis Eric Elie, Jessica Kivnik, Mitzi Roberts