Watching the first three episodes of the new FX cop drama "The Shield" left me with two very different impressions. First, this is the best police show to come along in years, the best midseason show of the year and a cable series that's better than the vast majority of its network counterparts.
Second, "The Shield" is on the wrong channel. A show with as much nudity, graphic sex, violence and strong language as this one doesn't belong on basic cable.
The show was to some extent inspired by (but is not based on) the Rampart police scandal in Los Angeles. It follows a squad of detectives working in the most crime-ridden part of L.A. And the character that leaps off the screen is detective Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis), a guy who will go to any lengths to fight crime — even commit crimes himself.
He's intensely loyal and completely committed to bringing down the bad guys, but he doesn't care how he does it. It's not just that Mackey will beat a confession out of a bad guy, but he seems to enjoy doing it.
And, in the name of protecting himself and his strike force, Mackey commits a shocking act before the end of the first episode. He's definitely not your average TV cop character.
"My feeling is that if we just make him a bad cop who's doing bad things every week, people are going to grow tired of that," said creator/executive producer Shawn Ryan. "To me, he's a much more complicated character who, at times, is a hero and at times is the antagonist of this piece. It really depends on the situation."
Chiklis called the part "a gift" — one that's a long way from the nice guys he played in "The Commish" and "Daddio."
"There were a number of things that attracted me to this, not the least of which being the ambiguity," he said. "I don't think of Vic Mackey as a bad guy or a good guy. . . . This is the way he copes and this is the way his mechanism works. And it might not be all right for people sitting in an armchair in suburbia thinking idealistically about the way things should be, because there's the way things should be and there's the way things are."
Mackey is constantly at odds with his commander, Capt. Aceveda (Benito Martinez), but Ryan tried to put something of a spin on that cop show cliché.
"What was of interest to me was — what if your two main characters are these opposing types and you can't immediately dismiss one as being just completely wrong?" he said. "And how can we have these two characters, Captain Aceveda and Vic Mackey, who are protagonists and antagonists — but which one's which in which scene and which one's which in which episode?"
But Mackey and Aceveda are just two of a show full of interesting characters played by a strong cast that includes CCH Pounder, Jay Kames, Catherine Dent and Michael Jace.
However, I can't give "The Shield" an unqualified recommendation given its placement on a basic cable network. There are scenes that make "NYPD Blue" look tame, including nudity, sex scenes, horrific violence and everything short of the f-word in terms of language. It looks like something you'd expect from HBO or a pay-cable channel that you specifically pay for and expect to include adult content. Not a basic cable channel that's next to Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel.
"We're promoting it in a fashion where we're letting people know that this is going to have adult content," said Peter Ligouri, FX's president and CEO. "We're going to put the (TV-MA) rating on it, and we're going to program it after 10."
("The Shield" airs at 11 p.m. on most local cable systems; 9 p.m. on most satellite systems.)
"We feel we're giving an audience every opportunity to be aware of what kind of content we're presenting," Ligouri said. "And then from that point on, it's their choice."
Which sounds good but is disingenuous in that it relieves FX of any responsibility. And, again, this is basic cable, and most kids today couldn't tell a cable network from a broadcast network.
And, frankly, FX doesn't have a great track record in terms of responsible programming. This is the home of the heinous ultimate-fighting and a network that aired "NYPD Blue" in the mornings.
As good as "The Shield" is, there's no ignoring the content.
E-MAIL: pierce@desnews.com