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Any favourite TV Cop shows? Streets of San Francisco with Mark Hamill, Hill Street Blues etc?

From the past-
Kojak.
Cannon.
Streets of San Francisco.
Hawaii Five 0.

More recently-
Frost.
Morse.
Lewis
Vera.
Midsummer Murders.
Law & Order.
Law & Order Criminal Intent.
Law & Order SVU.
Blue Bloods.
McDonald & Dodds

Rick😜
 
When she was living with me, my daughter used to say that I would watch anything with loads of initials -

CSI
NCIS
SVU etc

(These would have been the original series - not CSI Miami, for example.)

True, I must admit.

Law and Order SVU is my long-term favourite - superbly written and serious character development.
It is the "sex crimes" unit of NYPD but there is never anything violent or salacious, all handled very discreetly.

Even older series?

I am old enough to remember "No Hiding Place" and "Dixon of Dock Green."
Then "Z Cars"

"The Sweeney" was a real eye-opener at the time.
Previous British cop show heroes were all painfully respectable but drinking, womanising, disrespectful characters like Regan and Carter were much more fun.
As a young bloke it was addictive -but even respectable people and older ladies like my Mum loved it too.

Hill Street Blues was good, most of the Law and Order franchises though I find Vincent D'Onofrio very off-putting - not at all convincing and quite creepy so avoid anything with him in it.
Similarly David Caruso in CSI Miami - even more creepy, his acting ability is limited to putting his sunglasses off and on again and totally lacking in gravitas; useless!
Honorable mention for CSI New York.

Many of the British series were a bit naff, I reckon - going to be unpopular but "The Avengers" left me cold - "The Professionals" was risible.
"The Persuaders" and "Department S" and others usually had some good-looking women in them but sod all other reason to watch them.

I like Inspector Morse and George Gently

Some of these cop series are just tedious and pointless - Rosemary and Thyme, Vera, Midsomer Murders, Heartbeat, Death in Paradise etc
The TV equivalent of Muzak if you ask me.

Quite often series like "FBI" start off quite original but soon descend into pulp TV

Most "detective series" or cop shows seem very repetitive and formulaic to me these days

More and more nowadays I watch "Real Crime" type stuff rather than fiction
 
Elementary, U.S. reboot of Sherlock, is incredible; also Bones and The Mentalist are well worth a look. I've watched all of the above more than once, don't sleep much at night...
 
I was just thinking about 'Petrocelli' from the 70s. Wondering wether he's finished his house yet. 🤔
 
Sticking with just the American cop shows, I liked most of them.

Starskey and Hitch, Cagney and Lacy, Streets of San Fran Sisco, Kojak, Hill Street Blues etc were all decent. I recently binge watched every episode of Hunter, and it was good.

Those shows were mostly detective shows, if you wanted uniformed cops, we had TJ Hooker, which was also good.

One show in particular though, took me unawares. I started watching it, and it appeared to be a regular cop show, in fact it seemed pretty decent. However, after about 20 minutes, there was a villain in a cell, and he randomly broke into song, with full musical backing.

The show was called ‘Cop Rock’ and it was a regular cop show, but ALSO a musical! Utterly bizarre…
 
Gym.Hodgson said:
The Shield & NCIS


…aah, Cote de Pablo…
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Not forgetting her predecessor
Sasha Alexander

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The Wire
Lincoln Lawyer
Reacher

Not strictly ‘cop shows’ but great nonetheless…. 😂
 
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John M said:
The Professionals was the go to series for me.
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I loved that! Watched it religiously when it first came out. Years later, when I wrote my novel, I based the two heroes on me and my best mate at the time. Later still, I got cable TV and re watched The Professionals, and realised how much of Bodie and Doyle I had put into the characters as well. Btw, I was "Bodie" in the novel...
 
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