American TV Cop Show Clichés

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The recent cunting of ‘Americanisms’ seems to have struck a chord, so in similar vein, I reckon that clichés in American cop shows deserve a bumming.

Previously on ‘NY Blue Homicide Squad’…

Detective McLain (or McLone, or McLeod) is having a tough time. His wife’s left him and he only sees his kids every other Saturday. He’s been hitting the bottle pretty hard lately. To make matters worse, he’s old school, and doesn’t mind bending the rules to make a collar, but he’s just been partnered with Det. McGarrett, a sexy, supersmart 17-year-old blonde with a Ph.D in Criminology. She’s ambitious, but strictly ‘by the book’. Sparks are gonna fly for the first few episodes, after which they’ll go through the fire or take a bullet for each other.
McLain’s under pressure. There’s a serial killer on the loose, and the heat is on. ‘There’s no leads’, says McLain to the Loo-tenant (a black guy or a hard looking bird in a sharp suit). ‘Then get me some’, says the Loo, ‘or ya off the case’. ‘Just gimme 48 hours’, says McLain. ‘Ya got 24’, says the Loo, ‘now get outta my office’.

McLain’s desperate. We know this because in the ‘washroom’, he splashes one handful of water on his face, then grimaces at the haggard features reflected back in the mirror.

Enter officer McLatino. You’ve never heard of him before, but McLain knows him well. They were at the academy together, and rookies on the street. McLatino promptly gets axed by our killer, leaving McLain to console the grieving family. After a brief ‘do you remember that time when…’, McLain leaves, pledging to get the son of a bitch, because now it’s personal.

Suddenly there’s a break. Using her incredible computer skills, McGarrett has cross-matched a part print from a crime scene. ‘Bring the perp in’, says the Loo. ‘Lets end this now’.

Cut to an interview room, where a sneering eye-roller, who’s ‘lawyered up’ with a stone faced bird, confronts our heroes. After 30 seconds of sparring (have to keep things moving along to accommodate the adverts) the perp says ‘they got nothin’ on me, let’s get outta here’, at which point the mouthpiece slams a folder shut with a snarling ‘we’re done here’. ‘It’s over’, says the Loo. ‘The Chief’s bringing in the Feds’.

‘We can still do this’, says McLain to McGarrett, as they begin the process of bonding. ‘Look how the previous 47 axe murders all took place within a half block radius of this mechanic’s shop on 23rd. Records show our suspect did a mechanic’s course while on rehab. It’s a long shot, but I got a hunch about this; let’s stake the place out’.

Several hours later, and it’s dark. Our duo is sitting in a car parked in front of a shabby building, reminiscing about how each other’s dad was a cop, and how they always wanted to be a cop, secure in the knowledge that they can’t be spotted from just across the road.

Suddenly a hooded figure enters the garage, carrying a violin case shaped like an axe. There’s a muffled scream. ‘Call for backup!’ yells McGarrett. ‘No time,’ says McLain, ‘ He’s got somebody in there. We gotta go in!’. With a shout of ‘armed police, freeze!’, they kick the door in, whereupon the suspect promptly legs it up the nearest fire escape and on to the roof. ‘Get round back’ yells McLain, and heads up onto the pitch black roof. He edges from shadow to shadow, before leaping out in an armed stance. Suddenly the killer’s in the open, swinging wildly. ‘Drop your weapon!’ yells McLain, but the killer keeps coming and then trips, pitching over the railing to land on the sidewalk with a satisfying *splat*. Cue sirens in the distance…

Back at the precinct office. ‘Ya done good’, says the Loo. ‘You two are gonna make a fine team. Let’s get a drink’. ‘Yeah, and you’re buying!’ says McLain. Cheesy grins and high fives all around, as the leads weave their way between the ethnically balanced, no dialogue extras on the way to the door. Fade to credits. Wash, rinse and repeat for the next 500 episodes.

Welcome to the world of American cop show clichés, cunters. You know you love it. Way to go.

Nominated by Ron Knee

48 thoughts on “American TV Cop Show Clichés”

  2. Well-written, Ron.
    These programmes are not only formulaic shite full of hackneyed platitudes but further bastardising the English language with childish crimes against grammar and criminal inelegant syntax.

  3. The lack of risk assessments, diversity awareness workshops, cultural sensitivity to ‘da comoonity’ , gender neutral toilets or anything else than a slapped wrist for destroying a city block and writing off half a dozen squad cars.

  4. I enjoyed ‘The Mentalist’. And the first 5 or 6 seasons of ‘Castle’.

    Relatively harmless fun.

    ‘Dexter’ was pretty fucking good.

    • Afternoon Ruff Tuff, I used to like Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue. Kojack and Starsky and Hutch were good for a harmless laugh.
      All this new shit where the women are strong and the men are clueless just annoy me.

      ‘Let’s be careful out there ‘

      • Afternoon Fenton – yeah, I liked nearly all the old stuff, up until when the social engineering PC crap started creeping in back in the late ’80s /’90s I guess. ‘Life on Mars’ was a sort of comment on all that shit, wasn’t it?

        Nothing I can think of really does it for me nowadays. Guess we’re lucky to have the past so readily available on DVD…

      • Add in ‘The Sweeney’, ‘The Professionals’, ‘Target’ and ‘Shoestring’ and you’ve got a pretty solid 1970/80s line up – one that’s certainly far more entertaining that the PC-satured rubbish that now infests the airwaves.

  7. Prefer Road Wars or similar shows where it’s just footage of actual busts, blowouts, and bogans mouthing off before getting a nightstick to the skull or tasered to submission.

    That’s all the drama and entertainment you need right there!

  8. Miami Vice….
    The two most noticeable people in the whole city, go undercover to bust a drugs cartel, every fucking week….

    • Yep Crockett and Tubbs; the two cops on a cop’s pay, with designer suits and shades, swanky apartments, and the flashiest, most expensive cars in Florida. They weren’t bent mind, just had good connections in the fashion and transport businesses, 95% discount for cops

  9. Banacek, Randall and hopkirk,
    the persuaders, Mannix, Adam 12 , cannon,
    McCloud.. I could go on but I won’t.
    Fond memories..

  10. About time we had a gay cop struggling against the prejudices of his colleagues and the institutional homophobia of NYPD. One sub plot every week could be he spots a fellow cop in a gay bar who he then persuades to come out of the police locker.
    May I suggest that talented actor Eddie Izzard for the lead role.

    • Freddie, can we also have a Romainian cop who’s honest, conscientious, and foils the criminals (white males, naturally) without bending the rules.

      Superintendent: You to’ally busted that drug gang.
      Ceaceska: Fank you, Sir. I handed in all the Charlie.
      Superintendent: You did good, kid. Now go home to your family.
      Ceaceska: Tomorrow’s just another day

    • I always remember the one where the squad busts in on an armed gang, and a vicious looking hood squares up up to Regan. Jack looks him up and down and sneers ‘we’re the Sweeney, and we ‘aven’t ‘ad any dinner!!’
      Great stuff.
      The Ray Winston film was shite tho.

    • Absolutely agree. Regan and Carter nabbed the villains, bang to rights, gave them a good kicking and then down the pub or to bed with some fit bird. Those were the days, when a bloke was bloke and bird was bird, and she knew her place. Now where’s me smokes, ya bastard!!!

  14. Second that. It was the whole formula for years. Never a deviation. Very well written funny post.

      • Am I hallucinating or was he once a fireman? I seem to remember minor bother cos when he was hosing down the remains of some poor sod splattered over the road he remarked, oh well, there goes the brain drain. He’s a cunt, but it’s still funny.

      • Not a fireman… but in October 2008, during as interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Hatton revealed that he had become a capitalist running a property company in Cyprus and drove a £60,000 Range Rover.

        He justified his change in attitude as “My days in politics were a very long time ago and I lost interest in it after I was expelled from the city council.”

  16. I know it wasn’t a cop show, but it’s the same sort of shite…. The A Team… What a pile of Yankee Doodle wank…. Mister Cunting T, George Peppard , and those other two cunts… A million machine gun bullets get fired and no fucker ever dies….. TJ Hooker was also shite, but Heather Locklear livened up the old flute back in the day…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=2HRSr8QuMxQ

    • Norm
      It was a hoot how they went out of their way to show you that no one got killed. When a car went over the side of the road after BA had riddled it with bullets, they always cut to the shot of the baddies scrambling out unhurt to surrender.
      It jumped the shark the time a helicopter full of cruds smashed headlong into a hillside and plunged blazing to smash into a gully below. Cut to shot of the baddies scrambling out, hands in the air…
      Nothing if not realistic, but then ‘The A Team’ had the virtue of not taking itself remotely seriously.

  17. Cops in N Yorks have literally changed their SOCO white vans to CSI. And frensics, get tech, get frensics. Frensic back room totty, DNA match countdown fucking clock, three seconds later she’s in a shootout with her fucking magnum. No darling, you’d be stuck in the lab, making the tea for everyone.

  18. Women cops. It was even stupid back then. With Cagney or was it Lacey pregnant in the opening sequence. Waddling along. But she could fight as good as the men with her karate chops. Not a hair out of place. I watch these reality cop shows. The women cop always just a step behind. The man cop not only having to deal with the incident but be aware of the safety of the woman cop. Dividing his attention I mean. They are useful for dealing with unruly women I suppose.

    • I don’t think that there’s an American (or Canadian, for that matter) cop show around these days that doesn’t feature the male/female cop ‘partners’. It’s become a cliche in itself. I wouldn’t mind but no female cop ever looks remotely like a normal woman; they all look about 18, are stick insect thin, and incredibly beautiful, like models in fact. It might add just a HINT of authenticity if for once, one of them was about 40, 30 lbs overweight, had a mole on her face and wore glasses.

  19. Women in the military. To me is obscene. The guy who stroked Hartley Brewer’s knee? He was the defence secretary. Asked whether women could ‘yomp’ as well as men he maintained they could. But women aren’t as strong as men? Yes, he said. Back and forth. End position-women aren’t as strong as men but they can carry a heavily ladened pack just as long as men. Left with a total contradiction. Second point-I am not a military man but I am sure the presence of women destroys ‘unit coherence’.

  21. Well-written cunting. Some of these shows weren’t bad, Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue and The Wire. Two others that I thought were pretty good were The Big Apple and Southland which were hidden away on obscure Sky channels.
    These days I much prefer the real cop shows on the Discovery channels, like The First 48, Crime 360 and Murder Squad.

  22. Albeit British, not American, Frost had a nice wpo colleague (Hazel Frost, played by Caroline Harker), and you can’t beat DI Lucy Lane (however, she can beat me…).

  23. Ron.
    You’ve nailed it. Great work there. Don’t forget to remember your ISAC mates and matesses when Hollywood calls.
    Yep the Sweeney continues to be fondly remembered after all these decades.
    Alexandra Bastedo OH YES!
    Emma Peel HOT BUT UNATTAINABLE
    ….. but fasten your seatbelts for……..
    DAISY DUKE !!!!

  24. Sweeney, Minder and The Professionals, classic 70s TV, not like the shite nowadays. Thank heavens for ITV4 (although the other programmes on that channel are mostly shite).

  26. What about all of the cliched UK cop shows?
    White maverick detective, in his 40’s, divorced, a troubled teenage daughter and/or a drug addict son, unorthodox methods, bends the rules, the guvnor is a woman, has at least one black colleague, who of course has a stable family life. An asian colleague, ditto, and either a black or asian female colleague, preferably both, one of them will be gay of course, so all diversity boxes are ticked, then basically repeat Ron Knee’s description above…..

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