The Shield

Quote: Evenbob

By the 6th episode I so completely loathed
the bald guy that I couldn't watch it anymore.
It just wasn't believable.

Seems like the writers did their job in your case. I had heard that the writers were amazed so many people were like me and loved Vic despite the part written to make him a dirty cop.

The depravity of the cases Dutch and Claudette caught is unbelievable but probably not too far off reality of some of what our society has become.

Quote: AZDuffman

Seems like the writers did their job in your case. .

Just the opposite, I thought the writing was
atrocious. Real cops in the real world don't
act like this. And whats with shaking the
camera all the time, I thought that cheap
trick went out in the 80's.

Forget the bad acting and the terrible editing,
the storyline was so old and weary, that was
my biggest problem. The renegade cop who
gets away with everything and his ethnic boss
who hates him. How many times have we seen
this in the last 35 years.

This review is similar to how I feel:

"My wife and I watched Season 1 and abandoned The Shield in Season 2. There is nothing redeeming in this show. If one believes everything/everybody is corrupt, that violence reigns accross our police forces, that our officers of the law are no better than the thugs they brutalize, that politicians are as insensitive as the newspapers make them out to be, then one may like this series.
I haven't watched television for years, clearly, I haven't missed much. The language used as now being acceptable for a TV audience, the ongoing brutality among the cast members, and the repeated one plot line with each storyline author trying to outdo his predecessor on pushing everthing non-redeeming up several notches, turns this series into a BIG MISS for us."

And this one really sums it up:

"Nonsense. No imagination in scripts. Corrupt cops, drug dealer scenarios, general lack of originality. Pure 5 star bull***t. Crap, crap, crap, crappity crap."

Quote: Evenbob

Just the opposite, I thought the writing was
atrocious. Real cops in the real world don't
act like this. And whats with shaking the
camera all the time, I thought that cheap
trick went out in the 80's.

We will just have to disagree here. There are only about 25 basic plots any show can really have. Vic was the first corrupt cop I rooted for from day 1.

Quote: AZDuffman

We will just have to disagree here. There are only about 25 basic plots any show can really have. Vic was the first corrupt cop I rooted for from day 1.

What values did he have that you rooted
for. That he shoots a cop in the face because
he might expose him as the criminal he is?
That he violates every moral society has?
Boring. I liked the Sopranos, but I never rooted
for Tony or his way of life. Quite the opposite.

Quote: Evenbob

What values did he have that you rooted
for. That he shoots a cop in the face because
he might expose him as the criminal he is?
That he violates every moral society has?
Boring. I liked the Sopranos, but I never rooted
for Tony or his way of life. Quite the opposite.

Lets see, he never hurt a workingman, he only shook down crooks. The cop he shot was a rat trying to take him down so he did what it took to survive. He knew how to play every kind of personality and knew when to use just how much physical or other force. For once TV had a bad-assed white guy who knew the streets and beat the system.

IT IS A TV SHOW, it does not mean I root for crooked cops in real life. I watch scripted TV to escape life not to live more of it.

Quote: AZDuffman

The cop he shot was a rat trying to take him down so he did what it took to survive. .

The cop was doing his job as a cop, and got
wasted by a bad cop, and the audience found
this admirable? I was revolted when Tony Soprano
killed Big Pussy, and they were both crooks.

The thing I liked about Justified was, the cops
were cops and the crooks were crooks. The cops
were pretty much by the book. The crooks were
very colorful, but they were in no way rooted for
or admired. I don't get shows like Shield, where
it's a Superman type Bizzarro World. It just doesn't
pass the smell test.

Quote: Evenbob

The cop was doing his job as a cop, and got
wasted by a bad cop, and the audience found
this admirable? I was revolted when Tony Soprano
killed Big Pussy, and they were both crooks.

Cops are not supposed to rat out other cops. Forest Whitaker later plays an Internal Affairs cop who tries to take Vic and his crew down, eventually getting crooked to do it. He was amazed he got hate mail for his character. Many people had my attitude that Vic never shook down or took down someone who didn't have it coming to them and would go out of his way to help someone in need.

Quote:

The thing I liked about Justified was, the cops
were cops and the crooks were crooks. The cops
were pretty much by the book. The crooks were
very colorful, but they were in no way rooted for
or admired. I don't get shows like Shield, where
it's a Superman type Bizzarro World. It just doesn't
pass the smell test.

Here is the thing, all good cops and all bad crooks is something the public has outgrown. I can watch re-runs of "Dragnet" when I am in the mood for that. This is why the Vic character was so complex as was his relationship with Aceveda. Then in the Glen Close season Vic tried to go straight but got pulled back into the world he created.

Love it or hate it, you boys are getting all passionate discussing it 5 years after it went off the air. Creator Shawn Ryan did his job perfectly.