We watch... so you don't have to.
East Coast Cop Show: $1.99 a Pound
I'd love to watch Brooklyn South -- the latest Stephen Bochco salvo in his eternal war with Dick Wolf and Aaron Spelling for the production of every show on television -- but I'm already dangerously close to my maximum weekly intake of angst-ridden East Coast cops.Tuesday has a young, good-looking guy fighting crime with an older, non-good-looking guy on the streets of New York in NYPD Blue. Wednesday offers a young, good-looking guy fighting crime with an older, non-good-looking guy on the streets of New York in Law & Order. Friday serves up a bunch of various-aged, various-looking guys fighting crime with other various-aged, various-looking guys on the streets of Baltimore in Homicide. Sunday boasts a young, good-looking guy fighting crime with a young, good-looking non-guy on the streets of Washington, DC in The X Files.
Thursdays -- because, dammit, you've gotta live a little -- feature a young, good-looking guy fighting disease with an older, non-good-looking guy on the streets of Chicago in ER. Call me crazy, but I'll chase you down with a baseball bat while screaming about my mother.
There's an inexplicable chemical synthesis that goes on when you dump a goodly wad of gritty East Coast cityscape into a bucket with two lumps of sullen, moody detective. The resulting goo amounts to what little quality manages to leak from the concrete-entombed toxic waste dumps that we lovingly call the networks.
But vary the formula even slightly and you've got yourself just a sticky mess. Make 'em California cops and you're cleaning Pacific Blue off the walls. Make 'em California ex-cops and you're mopping up Total Security. Make 'em New York cops, but both young and good-looking, and you're wiping New York Undercover out of your mouth. Make 'em aged, hammy crime-solving California lifeguards surrounded by anamatronic sex toys and you're a superstar in Germany.
The networks could create these shows by fill-out form. And in fact, an intensive, month-long investigation has produced absolutely no evidence of this whatsoever, so I had to make one up. But, really, we all know what's going on, don't we?
So next season, expect six or seven new shows along the lines of Precinct 107: Staten Island, Blue Bronx Blue, and Yonkers Vice. TV Guide's already writing up the blurbs, just based on statistical likelihood. You've been warned.
