Bochco's success yielded the industry's mediocrity. Hollywood is full of un-original, bandwagon-jumping bastards. NYPD Butts was original when it came out and was wildly successful. Thus it got copied, to the point of being commonplace. The Shield, which is one of my favorite shows, is still just NYPD Blue set in LA with dirty cops.

A similar thing happened with the X-files. How many paranormal shows that were shot on film (vs video) sprang up after that surprise hit? Hardly any survived for any length of time.

Then with CSI ... all these shows (including House, of all things) have these train-of-thought camera shots that give the perspective of some inanimate object. The Simpsons gave a really good rip on this last month with Wiggum's "perspective gun" from the future.

Then The Dead Zone (which stylized itself after the X-files visually as well as the blend of standalones and story arc episodes) spawned a whole bunch of rip-offs like Tru Calling and Medium. Take a used concept, add hot chicks, call it new and original.

Now the documentary-comedy style made popular by Arrested Development is being copied. Tape on Bochco-style camera shakiness, remove the laugh track, add funny-ass narration and you've got a successful mockumentary. So everybody is now trying to do mockumentaries styled like Arrested Development, but this time viewers in America aren't adding their own laugh track either.

Edit: And yes, I know that Arrested Development ultimately owes it's existence to Spinal Tap.