Detectives Need Jobs...But is P.I. Really the Best One?

I mention earlier on this blog that many amateur detectives double as priests, gardeners, writers...

The professional police detective, of course, shows up in dozens of police procedurals. 

The professional P.I. is always a possibility, of course and a great many shows in the 1980s used this approach--though the P.I. was often a kind of "fixer": Spenser for Hire; Remington Steele; Moonlighting; Simon & Simon; Riptide.  

By default, the P.I. would seem to make the most sense. Keep tripping over bodies? It's okay! The P.I. is supposed to be there!  

However, with the exception of Elementary and Monk--which are police procedurals with consulting detectives--the P.I. role seems somewhat more limited. A requirement of the genre--as with Magnum--is that an episode (or even book) end with an action-movie sequence. People crash into sheds and blow up buildings and deal with fires and fly helicopters to islands and race cars or, with some of the P.I. shows from the 1970s, have a fist fight. 

Oh, yawn. 

I have the same bored reaction to spy shows--in general. Sure, I find Scarecrow and Mrs. King amusing! But Scarecrow and Mrs King, like Spy x Family, was part-spoof. 

And a surprising number of the above listed P.I. shows are comedies. (The image is from Castle's splendid pastiche!) I wonder if the "now, it is time to throw punches and look angsty" stuff palls on writers. Humphrey Bogart is amazing--

But even The Maltese Falcon had its amusing moments.