It seems to me that there are not many action series in American television. They used to be ubiquitous… too ubiquitous. Even the westerns of recent memory have been less action-oriented, such as Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman and the new Ponderosa series. Have stuntmen gotten too expensive? It’s certainly not a decrease in gore and violence. Any of the countless CSI spinoffs will verify that. The special-effects departments make the new mystery programs more revolting than horror movies used to be.
Do we really know they are “special effects” or are they something else? 
Trends, I guess. Who knows? There always has to be too much of something.
To the best of my knowledge, there really hasn’t been a new trend in TV since the late 50’s. Think about it, a half century of cop, hospital and lawyer shows… and when something really good and different shows up (read FIREFLY here), it gets canned after one season. America really has no imagination anymore… sigh…
What? Has reality TV (aside from game shows and talent shows)
been around that long, too? I kind of thought that was a newish
trend.
Character development seems to be the trend now for many
fictional shows such as Dead Like Me, Weeds, Californication,
which are relatively innovative (as TV goes).
I love Firefly to death, but it was only innovative in its setting
and the treatment of sci-fi memes (which, I hate to say, had
already been covered a lot in Buffy). Firefly was largely an action
show. Hell, now that I think on it there are action shows on current
TV, though a lot of them were reboots (Knight Rider and the Bionic
Woman). Burn Notice is an excellent action show in the old 80s
style (though the modern conspiracy theory trope still looms
therein). Heroes is consistently action-oriented. Chuck is nothing
but an action show. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is
wall-to-wall action. Come to think of it, I’m not sure Walden and
I are watching the same TV.
Of course, there’s nothing like Dukes of Hazard, or Charlie’s Angels
on anymore…
For which we are truly grateful.
There’s still fishing shows to fall back on, thank goodness. Not to mention NASCARP.
Reality TV has never been able to hold my attention, and most action series (though not all mind you) have been predictable with characters who seem barely capable of suspending a thought, let alone belief. I dunno, I freely admit I do not watch a great deal of TV and perhaps my opinion isn’t as well researched as it ought to be… but I can’t help thinking that maybe this is a good thing. 
Yeah, I miss Mannix, too. He was always wearing a bandaid on his forehead from one of his scrapes.
There are cycles. This fall there will be more comedies on launch because folks are so worn out from the real world, and the dark gritty shows that seem to be the rage lately (Dexter, Battlestar Galactica, Terminator).
The other point is that there are still action series, or at least shows with action segments. NCIS, 24, are two that come to mind. When “24” launched it probably had the most “action” ever for a network series.
Old “action shows” like the Dukes of Hazzard probably has about the same amount of action as any of the ubiquitous cop shows. Perhaps because they are cop shows, people don’t think of them as action shows, but there is usually just as many action scenes, as the old shows.
Some reasons there are fewer top flight shows is cost of special effects, another is that there are so many channels, that audiences are smaller per channel, per show, so budgets are proportionately smaller. Another reason is that folks have seen so many car chases, so many spectacular stunts that simple stuff that used to excite people that can fit into current budgets, don’t do anything.
Reality TV has taken a big bite out of all other genres. One reason for this is the spiraling actor salaries. Once a show becomes a hit, the stars have enormous leverage and know it, and hold out for top dollar, sometimes $1 million+ per TV episode, per star, which reduces any potential profit to the producers, and the network.
Yet another reason is the short leash shows are on. If a new TV show doesn’t do well in the first two or three outings, it often gets pulled. Even if a show gets renewed for a season or two, if ratings start to dip at any time, the plug often gets pulled.
Oh, no I agree that they suck. I was just saying that they were a new trend.
The Dukes was a cop show… just from the other perspective.
That new Avatar of yours is pretty scary…
Slan
D. 
Seriously…imagine you’re a truck driver, and you take a quick glance in the side-view mirror…
So is Leverage (sort of). And Prison Break.
And Firefly was too, to a certain extent.
Interesting.
Jesus may be closer than he appears.
Aaaaaaaaaaa!
It’s that 600-foot tall Jesus that talks to Oral Roberts. Or is 900 feet? Oral’s imaginary friend just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
(Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.)