Legal dramas: In. Medical dramas: Case closed.

by Debbie McDuffee

There's a distinct trend that suggests legal dramas are the up-and-coming thing, while medical dramas may be on the outs. Here's an idea: have an original one instead of riding on the coattails of others' successes and there'd be enough of everything to go around.

The current success of House, Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice caused the airwaves to be flooded with contenders for the next hit medical drama: 3 lbs., The Listener, Three Rivers, Trauma, Mercy, Miami Medical … I could go on. And now with Off the Map playing to less than expected numbers, it seems the trend may be wearing thin. Or is it just that there’s only room for so many medical dramas?

Enter the legal drama. David E. Kelley had a string of them: Ally McBeal, The Practice, Boston Legal and now Harry’s Law. The Good Wife is a hit with the ratings and the critics. We’ve got our legal drama casualties too: The Defenders and Damages are struggling, Eli Stone, Justice and Shark are gone, and The Deep End was barely a blink on our TV screens (maybe people are just sick of Shonda Rhimes?). But the trend hasn’t stopped: Fairly Legal is waiting for us over at USA and now a new legal drama pilot has been picked up from USA: A Legal Mind. It sounds kind of awesome, but that’s not my point.

If we look closely at what happened with many of the canceled medical dramas, we can fairly assume that a good portion of the new legal dramas won’t be lasting hits either. Trends don’t last, people.

So here’s my advice to anyone thinking of creating a new drama for TV … an original setting would open up doors for you if you can write a quality show. Skip the medical drama, skip the legal drama, and throw out vampires and cop shows while you’re at it. Please don’t remake an old hit or a British TV series. All of those things have been done — some well, some not so much. An original idea? I don’t think it has been done in a good long time. We’re waiting … and we’ll watch.