Do CBS dramas have any distinct personality? Take the TVgasm quiz!

After sitting through a good six hours of football today, we here at the TVgasm office couldn’t help noticing CBS’s increasingly generic promos for its increasingly generic lineup of procedural dramas. Not only do these series seem to have interchangeable storylines (revolving around flashlights it would seem), they also appear to be directed by the same person whose love for bluish/gray filters seems to know no bounds. Never mind that nearly all these shows hail from the same executive producer (Jerry Bruckheimer), and never mind that half these shows are spinoffs (CSI, Jag), and never mind that two thirds of these shows have the letters “C”, “S”, and “I” used as part of an acronym title. What really annoys us is the complete lack of creativity that starts with the network executives and ends with the cookie cutter promos.

So to prove our point, we’ve compiled stills from the six promos which aired ad nauseum today during CBS’s football broadcast. See if you can match the images to the promo tagline. It’s not as obvious as you’d think. (Answers at the bottom of the post)

Cold Case		A. “What CSI finds underground and underwater is nothing compared to what’s behind this door!”
CSI		B. Two controversial cases! One new CSI! Who will shake things up???”
CSI: Miami		C. “An underground prison cell, a mummified bride! Now the search for a madman is on!”
CSI: NY		D. “You never know where someone will disappear. Now a secret hidden for years is exposed!”
Navy NCIS		E. “It took a year for detectives to get this suspect in court. But now they’ll discover they may have the wrong man. And the killer could still be out there!”
Without A Trace		F. “The only thing more mysterious than the victim’s identity, is why he was murdered!”

ANSWERS

A. – CSI; B. – CSI: Miami; C. – Navy NCIS; D. – Without A Trace; E. – Cold Case; F. – CSI: NY

How did you do? Someone in my office went 0 for 6.