Cop Show
The Cop Show is an idealised representation of the police. Morality is very black and white, being a cop is far more dangerous than it really is, shoot-outs are common, as are car chases. They always get their man.
Specific variants: Buddy Cop Show.
See also: Crime-Time TV, Forensic Drama, Police Procedural.
Examples of Cop Show include:
- Adam-12
- Ashes to Ashes
- Alarm Fur Cobra 11
- Alien Nation
- Blue Heelers
- Blue Swat
- Boomtown
- Bookhunter
- Cagney and Lacey
- CHiPs
- Continuum, partially
- Death Note; partially
- Detroit One Eight Seven
- The District
- Due South
- Dragnet
- Disney also made a send-up of this with Fillmore!, which follows the adventures of a middle-school safety patrol.
- Flashpoint
- Ghost in The Shell Stand Alone Complex, to an extent.
- Grimm
- GSG-9
- Hawaii Five O
- Identity.
- Kidou Keiji Jiban
- Life On Mars 2006
- Life On Mars 2008
- Memphis Beat
- The Mod Squad
- Nash Bridges
- NCIS
- NYC 22
- Rizzoli and Isles
- Rookie Blue
- Rush
- Saving Grace
- The Sentinel
- SP - A Japanese police show which centered on the Metropolitan Police's Security Police Division
- SWAT
- The Sweeney
- Taiyou ni Hoero (Bark at the Sun), a Japanese police show that first aired in the Seventies. It had majorly influenced every Japanese Cop Show since; references and comparisons to it -- even snatches of the Instrumental Theme Tune -- are now almost inescapable. (The show was in the thematic vein of Starsky and Hutch, except with a Hill Street Blues-sized ensemble cast.)
- The Case Files of Yakushiji Ryoko
- Tokkei Winspector
- Tokusou Exceedraft
- Tokusou Robo Janperson
- Tokkyuu Shirei Solbrain
- TJ Hooker
- The Untouchables
- The Unusuals
- Police Squad!! was a parody.