When you think of the phrase cold case what comes to mind? Excitement? Drama? This is the question the creators of the Cold Case television show ask themselves. In the early part of 2002 Meredith Stiehm got his pen and paper out and put the finishing touches to the popular show we know today as Cold Case. Soon after the show was given the green light and made its debut on September 28, 2003. Currently this show receives about 10 million views per episode, this is a slight drop from its normal 11-12 million viewers but the show is still doing ok.
Cold Case is basically about a team of law officers who work at the fictional Philadelphia Police Department. Here they investigate all kinds of cases that have gone cold; most of which are at least 20 years old. The episodes usually start out with a flashback that gives you some background to the case and what time period the crime took place. Except for the flash backs there is not much visual violence in the show and each episode usually ends with the case being closed and all the evidence being put away in storage or shipped out of state to another department.
Cold Case is not the first of its kind. In 1980 the BBC had a show with a similar plot named The Enigma Files, and A&E had its show which dealt with real cold case files; this A&E program was named Cold Case Files. As always there are some networks who do not like the fact that Cold Case has become more popular than their shows; in 2003 Cold Case was sued by the Canadian show Cold Squad. The creators of Cold Squad clam that Cold Case is infringing on their copyright because some of the characters are similar and the premise of the show is about the same as theirs. This may be true, so I am not going to defend Cold Case but I have a feeling that this lawsuit is going nowhere.
Most detective shows around today deal with anything other than cold cases, this show is definitely one of a kind. If you are looking for a new show to watch or you just want to see something that is a little different than everything else out there; head over to
CBS and check out Cold Case. You can also see syndicated episodes of this show on TNT or buy the DVDs of season 1-6 which are now available.
