Over winter break, I had a lot of down time and got to catch up on TV shows I’ve been meaning to watch on Netflix and cable TV. I bet I'm not the only one that's noticed how shows are all starting to assimilate into one another. A guy with a square jaw line and dramatic glare, in his thirties or forties, is on the trail of a terrible criminal. His other cop, FBI or space cadet buddies are behind him. One is, undoubtedly, an attractive female. They hold pistols and flashlights, and creep cauciously in a hallway or around a dark corner. The music is suspenseful. The tension builds predicatbly and the action will be over in a flash. Or it is drawn out, unnecessarily, and leaves the hero miraculously unscathed.

I wonder when characters on these shows are going to start bumping into characters from different programs that fight crime in the same city. Places like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are starting to get a little crowded with overly dramatized, and mostly mediocre, cop shows. How many cop dramas do we really need? In an attempt to be original, they exceed all believability. Some examples include the different versions of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service) and Law & Order. Each collection of shows follows similar plot lines, has similar characters, but takes place in different cities. It's cookie-cutter TV. They all taste the same but take different shapes.

Too bad producers and writers don't focus their energy on developing an original masterpiece. Great shows make you identify with the characters and get you emotionally invested, like "Breaking Bad." Network producers and writers should have cut the cord on some of the first generation shows that spawned stencil-traced copies of themselves. When CSI was the only CSI, it was a national craze. Then, CSI: New York and CSI: Miama came out and tarnished the legacy. I'm talking to you, David Caruso (high five, if you know what I'm talking about). The television production community has sucked all my interest out of these kinds of shows. There are simply too many of them. Quality over quantity should be the mantra here.

The primetime cable television community could learn a thing or two from the people at AMC (the channel that brought us "Breaking Bad"), FX and other subcription-based networks like HBO and Showtime. Their shows are spectacular. They are well written, character driven and perfectly designed to immerse you in the story. They pull you into the action and emotion, and never loosen their grip. More importantly, they seem real and their unpredicability is shocking. These are the shows that suck up entire days, even weeks, because you can't bring yourself to take a break. You simply must watch the next episode or you will be wrought with anticipation all day and night, desperate to see how it ends.

Regardless, whatever the television networks are doing seems to be working. Every month, I see a commercial for a new show, and the old ones like it are still running. Enough people are watching to keep all these shows alive. If everyone shared my opinions on the matter, all the spinoffs of the same kind of show wouldn’t even last a whole season. I must be part of the minority on this issue. However, I’ve been in front of a lot of TV sets with a lot of different people and I’m usually not the first one to make a remark when a "Law & Order: SVU" commercial airs right after a commercial for "NCIS: Los Angeles," followed by an ad for "Criminal Minds."

These shows have their merits, but it’s hard to stand out in a room full of people that look, sound and behave just like you.