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Do you find television dramas too talky, with all of that yakkity-yak dialogue distracting from your enjoyment of all the pretty colors and pleasing noises emitted by your home theater? And when it takes more than 43 minutes to resolve your TV stories, are you afflicted by blinding migraines that subside only when you concentrate on the rhythms of inhaling and exhaling through your mouth? Of course you do, and of course you are. But don't worry, faceless Nielsen number, producer and de facto CBS programming executive Jerry Bruckheimer understands you:

Like "Without a Trace" and the "CSI" franchises, "Cold Case" is an amped-up version of a nuts-and-bolts, just-the-facts-ma'am cop show. Only louder and with brighter colors."We put a lot of emphasis on visual storytelling," Mr. Littman said. "One of the things Jerry says is that this is not radio. He wants the audience to have a reason to watch the show, not just listen to it." [...]

"After you come home from a long day's work, you want resolution," Mr. Bruckheimer said. "All our lives are ongoing, never-ending dramas. So we want something that, at the end of the hour, justice is served. Nobody wants to be left hanging."

See? Jerry knows you just want to forget about the drudgery of your life for an hour by watching cameras zoom in and out of dead people. He also knows that series with self-contained episodes are easier to sell into syndication, but that's just a happy side-effect of taking away your pain.