June 28, 2011

Cop shows

So I've noticed a change in cop shows in the last few decades. Obviously, some of the change would be expected since it is now a quarter of a century into the future. Rapid advances in real life police technology would filter through to the fictional TV world. One thing I miss is when an undercover cop used to go into action. One arm would be driving in hot pursuit and the other would be reaching around through the window, placing that magnetic blue police light on the top of the (usually enormous) vehicle. The viewer would then know at that time that this cop is 'all business' right now.
Another previously common behaviour of the TV-cop was to commandeer a vehicle. "Excuse me, sir?... I need to commandeer this vehicle!" And then, in what was borderline theft/vandalism, the hero would chase after the bad-guy in a variety of modes of transportation, and often resulting in destroying the citizens property. I mildly looked it up on the internet and at least in some parts of the USA, it is actually something that cops are allowed to do, even today. I could imagine that it is very rarely used these days since the courtroom aftermath that would inevitably follow would deter most boys in blue. This real life deterrent is probably acknowledged by the writers and now we hardly ever see it.
A third thing involves terrorists. Why are police shows needing to be fighting them all the time? Maybe it's more sensationalistic to be fighting terror than crime these days. Maybe the people that make shows think that's what people want. Since I'm a person myself, I can say that we just want the odd cop show with decent writing with characters that we actually care about.

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