While Prime Video’s biggest detective drama series technically ended its original show’s run over three years ago, this has not stopped the franchise from growing bigger than ever in 2026. Detective shows might change in terms of tone and style, but they will always remain big business on TV and streaming. From light-hearted, playful detective shows like High Potential and Psych to darker, moodier psychological thrillers like Mindhunter or Mr. Mercedes, there is a detective series for every viewer.

Judging by its popularity, Prime Video’s biggest detective drama franchise is arguably the detective show for every viewer. While Prime Video’s spy thrillers like Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Citadel, and The Terminal List are some of the straeming service’s starriest projects, it is a comparatively modest detective drama that has unexpectedly become one of its biggest franchises over the last 12 years.

Based on The Lincoln Lawyer author Michael Connelly’s novel series of the same name, Bosch stars Titus Welliver as the titular troubled LAPD homicide detective, Harry Bosch. Despite tackling personal demons, Bosch excels at his job and even manages to uproot corruption within his own department while simultaneously hunting depraved serial killers throughout the Hollywood Hills. With both season-long arcs and one-off episodic storylines, Bosch’s seven seasons blended the serialized plotting and mature content of streaming shows with the more mainstream, familiar police procedural formula of many network hits.

Bosch: Start of Watch and Ballard Season 2 Make Prime Video’s Bosch Bigger Than Ever

This resulted in the show soon becoming one of Prime Video’s biggest hits ever, lasting 68 episodes and almost immediately spawning a three-season sequel series, Bosch: Legacy, after its series finale. Bosch: Legacy lasted until 2025, but the Bosch franchise itself was far from over. Before Bosch: Legacy’s series finale came the arrival of Ballard, a spinoff starring Maggie Q as the titular detective specializing in cold cases, which debuted to strong reviews for its 10-episode first season.

The same month that Ballard was renewed for a second season, Prime Video announced the upcoming Bosch prequel Start of Watch, which is set to star Gotham’s breakout star Cameron Monaghan as a young version of the tortured detective. Thus, the Bosch franchise is now bigger than ever in 2026, as the series is soon set to have two different shows released at the same time for the first time since its 2014 debut.

A lot of detective drama franchises have released two shows simultaneously, from Law & Order and its spinoff Law & Order: SVU to the original CSI and its location-based spinoffs, CSI: Miami and CSI: NY. However, what makes Prime Video’s Bosch franchise expansion so notable is the fact that the show isn’t a CSI or a Law & Order, in that it focuses on a specific title character rather than an entire department.

Bosch Could Get Even Bigger After Bosch: Start of Watch and Ballard Season 2

Image via Everett Collection

For decades, cop shows have been split into those that center on whole police departments and those that focus on one renegade cop or an unlikely duo. Even cop sitcoms like Brooklyn Nine-Nine follow this approach, acting as a comedic version of Law & Order with its large ensemble of instantly recognizable characters. Bosch instead slots into the troubled detective subgenre occupied by other hits like Luther, Broadchurch, Netflix’s Neo-Westerns Longmire and Dark Winds, Mare of Easttown, Justified, and arguably even Reacher.

Since the character of Bosch himself is so central to the show’s original appeal, it is easy to see how the Bosch franchise can get even bigger after the release of both Ballard season 2 and Bosch: Start of Watch season 1. By bringing back the original Bosch series after the abrupt end of its sequel, the franchise could return to its roots and release an almost unprecedented three shows at the same time in the future.

Release Date

2015 – 2021-00-00

Network

Prime Video

Showrunner

Eric Ellis Overmyer

Directors

Alex Zakrzewski, Ernest R. Dickerson, Patrick Cady, Aaron Lipstadt, Adam Davidson, Daisy von Scherler Mayer, Kevin Dowling, Neema Barnette, Tim Hunter, Zetna Fuentes, Christine Moore, Jim McKay, Laura Belsey, Matt Earl Beesley, Phil Abraham, Roxann Dawson, Sarah Pia Anderson, Stephen Gyllenhaal, Tara Nicole Weyr, Thomas Carter, Hagar Ben-Asher

Writers

Jeffrey Alan Fiskin, Tom Bernardo, Elle Johnson, John Mankiewicz, Shaz Bennett, Alex Meenehan, Katie Pyne, Osokwe Vasquez, Lolis Eric Elie, Jessica Kivnik, Mitzi Roberts