Modern Cop Shows

Jan. 16, 2009


Modern Cop Shows

TV crime shows used to be simple. Easy to understand. Typically, we had Broderick Crawford of "Highway Patrol," with his puffy, hungover face, yelling into a microphone, "Unit Seven, where are you?"

"We're at the city dump. What's up, Chief?)

"Bank heist in progress. Corner of Main and Locust. Go!"

The cops raced to the scene, charged into the bank, shot the heisters, and that was it. No complications or confusion.

Not today. Modern crime programs begin with this warning: "If you do not have an advanced degree in physiology, microbiology or forensic medicine, you are too stupid to understand the following program. Go watch Larry King instead."

Scene 1: A decayed male cadaver has been found, but with no head. Twenty technicians are at work, shooting pictures and taking samples of dirt, flesh and fingernail DNA. Local police seem to be in charge. Just for now.

Scene 2: The city morgue. The medical examiner, Wanda Hoff, beautiful, sexy and 40ish, announces, "The cause of death was malopricious moon fungus, probably imported via Baluchistan cheese. I suspect terrorists."

At that point the FBI steps in, and feuding breaks out between the locals and the feds. In modern cop shows, everyone hates the feds.

All the FBI agents are gorgeous, bright and about 18 years old. The agent in charge is Susie Gillette, who has a Ph.D. in ballistic destiny. She has the hots for her No. 2 agent, the alcoholic Gomer Flick, romantically unavailable because his wife is dying of adult mumps. Comedy relief is supplied by
Snapper, an obese computer genius who keeps scarfing french fries and saying, "You'll find the victim's head in a Quiznos dumpster."

Scene 3: The Quiznos dumpster. Sure enough, the missing noggin turns up. Its left earlobe has a tattoo of three Greek symbols that mean, "Vote for Nixon." A ruthless TV reporter, Shanks Puffer, airs a story blaming the murder on disgruntled Democrats.

Scene 4: A sinister emissary from the Baluchistan Ministry of Cheese Exports confronts Wanda Hoff and tries to bribe her into changing her cause-of-death decision. She refuses, saying, "My judgement is not for sale, you Mideastern creep." Later she is indicted for ethnic slander.

And so on. Most of today's crime shows (an exception is the slapstick "Reno 911") no longer portray ordinary police at work. Instead they give us airy-fairy scientists, needle-eyed technicians with tweezers in hand, and psychologists who specialize in perversions so gross you don't even want to
discuss them with your dog.

While we're at it, let's not forget the TV crime programs that require you to have a law degree. just to get through the first twenty minutes. The one I watch most is the long-running "Law and Order." It usually starts out slowly, with a simple crime such as someone setting fire to an orphanage for handicapped children. But by the time the show ends, the arsonist is allowed to cop a plea because the orphanage's administrator was guilty of enforcing Sub-Section 27 of the New York Child Welfare Reform Bill of 1977 which, as any viewer knows, was ruled to be immaterial, moot, invasive and sucky by the U.S. Supreme Court (Rasp v. Loogey, 1988).

The program ends with idealistic Sam Waterston getting chewed out by his boss, the pompous, sorghum-tonsilled Fred Thompson. But it's all worth watching, just to see Mariska Hargitay in action.

###