Ah, traditional telly. Remember those days? Following the TV guide like it was gospel to patiently wait for your favorite show to come on, and having to manually record it if you were busy. The best streaming services on the market made that a thing of the past, but that doesn’t mean cable TV should be forgotten.
In fact, some of the best crime procedural dramas around are currently airing on ABC, CBS, and more. You might have already missed most of the latest seasons airing live, but that’s where DIRECTV comes in.
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The Rookie
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We’re starting off strong with ABC’s The Rookie, which is like if 9-1-1 was happening to someone in their 40s. John Nolan (Natha Fillion) is our main man in question, a newly divorced man from Pennsylvania who has assisted in solving a bank robbery.
He gets the fighting crime bug so bad that he moves to Los Angeles and becomes the oldest rookie on the LAPD force. From there, life becomes dangerous, unpredictable and full of a lot of strange looks from his colleagues.
The ensemble performances are what really sell this, making us feel like we’re watching a high-stakes fly-on-the-wall documentary instead of a drama. Action, suspense and humor are all balanced just in the way you want them, and as Nolan’s cop career begins to take shape, episodes of The Rookie become more and more addictive.
One Chicago
I’m sort of cheating with this next pick as I’m rolling three juggernauts into one. Chicago Fire, Chicago PD and Chicago Med come together to form the One Chicago franchise, which each drop consecutive episodes on NBC.
Never again do you have to choose between cop and medical drama, because all of our bases are well and truly covered here. If you watch for long enough, you’ll get to see the infamous crossover episodes, with characters from one series regularly featuring in another.
If your somebody who enjoys a healthy slice of lore in your TV viewing, this is the choice for you. Fun fact: there used to be a fourth member of the One Chicago world — Chicago Justice — but it was canceled after one season in 2017.
Tracker
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Tracker is the choice that comes loaded with family backstory, with the CBS drama following Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley), a lone-wolf survivalist who travels the country in his RV using expert tracking skills to solve mysteries and find missing people for reward money.
Immediate intrigue already. But then there’s Colter’s own backstory, which becomes inextricably tied into the overarching plot by the time we get three seasons in. Simply put, this is your choice for mystery and character-driven, rugged storytelling.
Hartley has been widely praised for his performance, and you’ll be hard pressed to keep up with exactly what’s going on each time you tune in. There’s nothing like being kept on your toes, after all.
Fire Country
CBS’ Fire Country is possibly the most emotional choice on this list, following the Cal Fire inmate programme used to reintroduce convicted prisoners into the working world. Bode Donovan (Max Thieriot) is the man at the center of it all, frequently haunted by his own complicated past.
Not only are we confronted with the ethical dilemma of sending inmates to do some of the world’s most dangerous work for pittance in return, but the show’s mysteries run deep. Our multi-faceted characters are people we can never truly get to the bottom of, and there are enough unanswered questions to keep us hooked for a lifetime.
There’s even better news if you enjoy it — spinoff Sherriff Country joined the channel last year, with season 2 set to hit in late 2026.
Matlock
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Matlock is a name you’ll remember from crime TV of old, but the legendary Kathy Bates hasn’t just reinvented the TV detective… she’s gender-swapped him.
In the new CBS version, Madeline “Matty” Matlock rejoins the workforce at a prestigious NYC law firm by quite literally sneaking in undercover. She uses her unassuming demeanor to win cases, but she’s on a secret mission — find out which firm member buried evidence of the opioid scandal that caused her daughter’s death.
In a word, Matlock is charming. Bates is as brilliant as she always has been (and forever will be), while the overall format remains loyal to what came before. It’s the best choice for cozy crime, allowing you to solve weekly cases from the comfort of your armchair.
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