What is Cold Case's IQ Score?

Cold Case has an IQ Score of 108/200 on TV Intelligentsia's Intelligence Quotient framework, placing it in the Competent tier. The score breaks down to 31/50 Cognitive Stimulation, 8/50 Educational Value, and 47/50 Craft & Quality.

Is Cold Case educational?

Cold Case is low on educational value, 8/50 on TVI's rubric. Watch for entertainment, not for learning.

How does TV Intelligentsia calculate IQ Score?

TV Intelligentsia's current published formula is round((Cognitive Stimulation × 0.4 + Educational Value × 0.35 + Craft & Quality × 0.25) × 4), scoring titles from 0 to 200 across five tiers. TVI publishes a three-dimension breakdown only when those values reproduce the displayed composite. The framework is published at tvintelligentsia.com/methodology/.

Cold Case IQ Score 108/200

Cold Case has an IQ Score of 108/200 on TV Intelligentsia's Intelligence Quotient rubric, placing it in the Competent tier.

By Jordan Robinson, MD, MPH·Updated 2026-09-07·Methodology

crime proceduraldrama

108/ 200

Competent

Engages without demanding much, watchable and reasonably crafted

Score Breakdown

Legacy score. Published under our earlier workflow, before the current standard took effect in August 2026. A founder reviewed and approved it against our methodology, under a process that does not meet the standard we hold now. What this means →

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Cognitive Stimulation/50

Educational Value/50

Craft & Quality/50

IQ = round((Cognitive × 0.4 + Educational × 0.35 + Craft × 0.25) × 4) · How we score →

What these dimensions mean

Cognitive Stimulation: observable narrative complexity, conceptual density, ambiguity, inference, and sustained intellectual demands in the work.
Educational Value: the density and integration of substantive academic, historical, scientific, cultural, ethical, or practical information in the work.
Craft & Quality: production excellence in service of the work, its direction, writing, performance, and aesthetic intent.

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Why you should trust this score

Scored under Jordan Robinson, MD, MPH

Physician and founding editor. Maintains the adult catalog against the published rubric and reviews the rubric application.

Methodology

Published rubric, v1.3.1

Formula

round((C × 0.40 + E × 0.35 + Q × 0.25) × 4)

Database scale

2,607 titles, version-controlled

How we stay independent. Editorial scores are not for sale. TVI may take on paid advisory or research work, but no commercial relationship buys coverage, advance access to scores, favorable treatment, or a change to a published finding. We pay for our own streaming subscriptions, and no reviewer sees sponsor data or affiliate revenue tied to a score. More about how we work →

The TVI Take

Meredith Stiehm's CBS procedural anchored by Kathryn Morris as Lilly Rush, a Philadelphia homicide detective working unsolved cases. The structural commitment to letting period-specific decade specificity (1960s civil rights, 1980s AIDS crisis, 1990s gang violence) be the actual subject of each case, rendered through period-accurate music supervision and visual register, is the property's distinctive innovation.

People & Production Meredith Stiehm · Jerry Bruckheimer · CBS Productions 23 connections