There's a reason there are 50,000 cop shows and firefighter shows: Watching them is cool.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I watch cop shows, I really enjoy them because you can really follow the story and get involved, and the characters are always really interesting.
The notion of being on a cop show was appealing, just because it's one of those tick boxes in a career.
Every year there's five cop shows, five medical shows and five 'Law & Orders,' but when it's a show about women, they want to pit everyone against each other. I don't think they'd do that if it was a guy show. I think there's room for all of us.
A lot of cop shows, because they have the restraints of having a new case every episode, the victims often become these kind of nameless, faceless plot points, and as an audience we don't feel anything for those people.
Cop shows are by definition melodramatic; they're larger than life. They create very stark contrasts and conflicts emotionally. They're provocative, assuming they grapple with - to the extent that cop shows are mirrors of the culture.
Television is a powerful medium that has to be used for something better than sitcoms and police shows. On the other hand, if you don't recognize the forces that play on what people watch and what they don't then you're a fool and you should be in a different business.
Gimmicks come and go; the cop show seems one genre that will never leave - not as long as people like to sit at home in the suburbs and see what awful things go on in the cities.
The most credible police shows I've ever seen were 'Barney Miller' on TV and 'The French Connection' movie. They showed the tedious side of police work.
But live shows are cool. I just got back into the idea of enjoying it live.
I don't watch cop movies much. I TiVo shows. I watch every Larry David show.