Cop Shows

[writerkit]

So I saw this: https://star-anise.tumblr.com/post/620124001793163264/nurselofwyr-rhythmic-idealist-aleshakills

It discusses a lot of common tropes in cop shows. And I've said for a while that this is why Flashpoint is my favorite cop show-- they don't ever act like procedure is something to be gotten around. (Well, except the don't-date-each-other procedure, in the case of the show's primary couple.) I've often wondered if the reason it's different is that it's a Canadian cop show, set in Canada, where they don't have quite the same love affair with guns. (The fact that they don't carry their guns on them while off-duty is actually a plot point a couple of times, when someone takes hostages where one of them happens to be.) And they *discuss* their procedures on camera a lot; the very first episode has "this is the investigative procedure we undergo every time we kill someone" as a major part of the plot, and they're not especially antagonistic towards it.

Noticing all the stuff discussed in the linked essay has actually made me less and less able to watch cop shows when I used to be very into them. Now I can mostly watch ones like Flashpoint where they *don't* go off the rails, or ones like Grimm where the focus is on "We have plenty of evidence except for the fact that we can't explain that this guy actually morphs into a giant ogre and ripped these people apart with his bare hands; now what?" And now that I think of it, except for the first episode when Nick sees Monroe turn into a Big Bad Wolf and assumes that *obviously* this is the child-kidnapper-- and is wrong and gets called out for it-- I don't think Grimm has much if any of the sort of rights violations you see on most cop shows. (Or most supernatural shows, for that matter; Nick trying to *arrest* the supernatural murderers if at all possible is part of the plot as the thing that differentiates him from his more monster-hunter ancestors.)

Those are the two that really stand out as being decent, but there are a whole slew of cop shows out there, and most of them are really bad at this. There's something of a spectrum, because some aren't *too* awful (forensics shows usually make a pass at the idea that you need evidence) and some are *much worse*. Though it's actually really interesting that NCIS is one of the worst offenders in that regard, because the show it spun off of was JAG, and JAG was explicitly a *lawyer* show, not a cop show. The lawyers did a lot more investigating than most lawyers (and you really do have to consider the first season separately from the later seasons because they're functionally two different shows), but because the main cast was a pool of military lawyers who would be assigned to prosecution or defense in any given episode, they couldn't get too far from the idea that your rights mean something. (They had a whole slew of Absurd Courtroom Antics, but there was a lot of emphasis on the courtroom being important.)

Comments

[jducoeur]

Hmm. I *think* that _The Rookie_ (our current cop show of choice) is good-not-great in this regard. Those tropes do show up, but our protagonists tend to be at least somewhat rules-oriented (not least because, as a bunch of rookies, they're under a microscope). One of the cops is dating a defense attorney, so they do get into that aspect of things pretty explicitly, although not with a ton of subtlety.

I'll have to keep this in mind when the show returns -- now I'm curious.

Nick trying to *arrest* the supernatural murderers if at all possible

By coincidence, a variant of this is central to right where I am in _Supernatural_ right now (early season 11), as the boys get into a fairly serious argument of, "When did we turn into the shoot-first-ask-questions-later guys?"

(Although that said, there is no such thing as legal procedure on that show: the only question is whether *all* monsters should be killed on sight, or whether some of them should be allowed to live -- it's quite dark if you really think about it at all.)

There's something of a spectrum, because some aren't *too* awful (forensics shows usually make a pass at the idea that you need evidence) and some are *much worse*.

Oh, heck yeah. I mean, it isn't technically a cop show, but _24_ shared a lot of DNA with cop shows, and by season 4 had become the poster child for the brutality of the Dubya era, coming down firmly pro-torture...

[writerkit]

I managed to get about ten minutes into Supernatural before deciding I couldn't deal, though thanks to Superwholock I'm fairly aware of it regardless.

[jducoeur]

I should note that, like many older genre shows, _Supernatural_ takes a while to come up to speed. Season 1 is largely a waste: it lays critical groundwork, but is mostly annoying, poorly-written monster-of-the-week. Season 2 starts to get decent, but it's really 3-5 that are great -- the writing solidifies, it finds its sense of humor, and the main arc clicks into place. (After that, the seasons are very up-and-down: I'm still watching, but there's a valid case for stopping after season 5, very much like Buffy season 5.)

That said, it might well not be your cup of tea. Even at the best of times, the show has a very acerbic view of the universe (yes, demons are worse than angels -- but only somewhat, and only on average), and tends to a considerable amount of violence.