Lesser evil, but not always, and even then, not by much

brightfamouscucumber

Cops is weekend prime-time 30-minute action-packed "reality" TV show, where cameramen ride along with on-duty police officers, purportedly showing real-live incidents as they occur while the police officers are on duty.

Unlike other law-enforcement-biased "reality" shows, such as "Real Stories of the Highay Patrol", COPS restricts any and all commentary to the video-recorded events of the same duty-shift. At least as far as I have seen, except when COPS combines episodes with other "reality" based law-enforcement shows, each segment starts with a police officer driving along in his car, or meeting with other law-enforcement officers, making general comments about their perception of law-enforcement, or saying something specific, to set up the upcoming action scenes.

Then it shows some scenes of the ride-along officers encountering the public in response to form of complaint, and sometimes it shows the resolution of those complaints.

It is completely unscripted, and off the cuff.

It often shows actual disturbances, violence, bloodshed, and actual death.

It often shows police brutality and officers defaming the character of the people they encounter.

It often shows people in the process of committing a crime.

It also, often shows police officers in the process of committing crimes.

But it never shows the crime-committing cops being handcuffed.

This is a dangerously biased show.

It is a show depicting that COPS can do no wrong.

It does state at the beginning of each episode that "all suspects are considered innocent until proved guilty in a court of law", but it's always some other bad guys, not the criminals of a badge-bearing kind, who get cuffed and stuffed, and in some cases, brutalized. And it is quite clear that the vast majority of the badge-bearers consider the suspects guilty.

And it's edited to be this way.

It's edited to appear to be some sort of "good versus evil", but it is not. It is nothing short of evil vs. evil, and sometimes its the perp who's more evil, and other times it's the badge-bearer. But it's always the badge-bearer whose opinions get final input on each and every segment, and usually a very rude bash of the people they were hired to protect and serve.

It is sick and it it is twisted, and it is in a time spot known to be predominantly viewed by adolescents.

On a scale of one-to-ten for entertainment value, I would quite honestly and with great justification give it a negative ninety-nine.

The worst nightly news show in a third-world country would receive a greater rating from me than this atrocious filth.

score /10

brightfamouscucumber 6 October 2005

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1187968/