Ah, okay, I ate up the stabbing/addiction stuff like candy, but I do know what you mean about the show becoming more soap opera-ish and contrived, and also I know it bothered a lot of people how much it repeated plots, especially the very together guy suffering some violent trauma and then having issues. I missed a lot of seasons 8 and 9 and quit after the tenth one, and that was mainly because I didn't have access to the episodes at that point but also because there were so few characters left that I really cared about.