Name That TV Show
I am envisioning a new television show, and have finally settled upon a realistic production format. I floated through several models, starting with the ubiquitous Cops, and continued through other standbys such as America’s Most Wanted and 60 Minutes. But in each case, the production costs and necessary cooperative elements would likely preclude success. What I needed was a cheap production that required limited cooperation from involved parties. I have found the model: Snapped. Every show is exactly the same: Dramatic voice-over narrative tells the story of an American couple, usually married, in which one partner murders the other, gets caught, and goes to trial. Nearly all filming is of still photos, file footage, or interviews with friends, relatives, or attornieys for the involved parties. So simple, so cheap, and compelling none the less. My wife loves it; she is watching a Tivo’d episode as I write this. (Yeah, we will all just leave the implications of that alone, mkay?)
So I want Reason TV, Penn & Teller or Drew Carey or whomever to drive production of a Snapped-style docudrama that focuses exclusively on police, prosecutor, or other law enforcement official abuse. Just take every story that Radley Balko (warning, he’s one of those effete cosmotarians, forsooth) has ever written: interview the involved parties, get a few shots of the police headquarters refusing to comment, toss in dramatic narrative, and you got yourself a show I will watch every day.
Because I am so pissed. I am so sick of reading about prosecutors and police with a documented lengthy pattern of misconduct or negligence, pursuing cases in a reckless manner that leads not just to violations of civil liberties, but to actual false convictions and near executions, while the actual perpetrators walk free. I am so tired of hearing about the supposed internal reviews and reforms that the involved police departments never implement in good faith or to useful effect. I am so weary of these bastards, few though they may be, continually distorting our system of laws, and consistently protected by their colleagues. We need a TV show that can fight back against the ridiculous America’s Most Wanted mentality. A program that can compete for the hearts and minds of the general public against the gratuitous police worship in Cops, or the broad brush and simplistic categorizations of To Catch A Predator.
Is this feasible? Would you watch? And if it came to be, what would you call it?
hell yeah i’d watch it.
i’d call it To Protect and Serve.
Comment by weltschmerz — 2/12/2008 @ 12:10 am
America’s Funniest Wrongful Convictions
Necessary touch: film clips of the jury foreman announcing, “We find the defendant…guilty,” accompanied by the wacky horn “waaaah waaaaaah waaaaah waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” sound effect.
Comment by Rojas — 2/12/2008 @ 12:34 am
The families of the defendants a moment after the verdict is announced breaking out in screams of sorrow, accompanied by a slide-whistle.
Comment by Brad — 2/12/2008 @ 12:36 am
Followed by a montage of the prisoner being led away, going to death row, being made somebody’s bitch, losing appeal after appeal, and finally being executed, all done Benny Hill style.
Shit, I think this is a winner.
Comment by Brad — 2/12/2008 @ 12:38 am
Seriously, though: one of the major developments following the ubiquity of DNA testing has been a seemingly endless parade of stories on CNN in which somebody is freed after twenty years in prison, having been found, not merely not guilty, but factually and demonstrably innocent of the crime in question.
It seems like there’s a new such story every week. And these are just the cases in which genetic evidence is available.
What do you suppose the percentage of wrongfully convicted inmates in our nation’s prisons is? 1%? 2%? 10%? Can we even guess? And do we even care?
Comment by Rojas — 2/12/2008 @ 1:07 am
Hmmm, anyone watch HBO’s “The Wire.” I think that would cover it, although not exactly in the same format you’re talking about. But it’s the best TV Show ever, period. No debate. Btw, this is it’s last season and it’s going out in gangbusters…
Comment by Kaligula — 2/12/2008 @ 9:48 am
I’ve never been able to get into The Wire. Of course, The Sopranos never resonated with me either. Nor CSI, Hill Street Blues, nor any other crime drama.
Comment by Rojas — 2/12/2008 @ 10:12 am
Call it Law and Disorder and use a police whistle sound as a bump between scenes.
Comment by James — 2/12/2008 @ 12:57 pm
I’m so cool, it’s a crime.
Comment by Adam — 2/12/2008 @ 2:43 pm