| LC control no. | gf2011026657 |
|---|---|
| Thesaurus/term list | lcgft |
| Genre/Form term | Television cop shows |
| Variant(s) | Cop shows (Television programs) Cop television programs Police procedurals (Television programs) Police shows (Television programs) Police television programs Policiers (Television programs) |
| See also | Television crime shows Detective and mystery television programs |
| Found in | LCSH, January 28, 2008 (hdg.: Cop shows) Moving image genre-form guide online, January 28, 2008 (Police: fictional work portraying the activities and personalities of official law enforcement officers and agencies (from municipal police to F.B.I. to G-men) in tracking criminals. Police stories offer many of the same elements as the Crime and Mystery genres, but with an added concentration on the procedures of police work and characterizations of police officers) Yee, M.M. Moving image materials, 1988: p. 78 (Police films and programs: use for fictional genre films and programs which focus on the fight against crime conducted by official law enforcement agencies such as the Police Dept., or the FBI. Include here semidocumentaries and procedurals which re-enact actual cases and/or attempt to protray actual crime fighting techniques. UF Cop films and programs; Law enforcement films and programs; Policiers) Google, Jan. 28, 2008 (Cop shows 236,000 hits; Police shows 47,000 hits; Police television shows 1,940 hits) Wikipedia, Jan. 1, 2016: List of genres (Police procedural: pioneered by the popular show Dragnet. The stories revolve around a crime that has been committed and must be solved by the end of the episode following a very generic and usually unchanging structure of events. The crime is committed, witnesses are questioned, an arrest occurs, and then a judicial conclusion wraps it up. As the name implies, the show communicates everything "by the book," as it would happen in real life. In such modern Police Procedurals such as Law & Order, you see and hear even the officers reading freshly arrested criminals their Miranda rights. Not quite as dramatic or action-oriented as the Dick Tracy-style of detective shows.) TV tropes website, Sept. 30, 2016: Cop Show (The Cop Show is an idealised representation of police work, justified by the Rule of Cool. Morality is very black and white, being a cop is far more dangerous in this genre than it really is, shoot-outs and standoffs are common, as are car chases and serial killers. The protagonist is often a cowboy cop who often gets his man (even if not the first time). Of course, they don't forget the niggling details of the job, either. Specific variants: Buddy Cop Show. The more realistic representation of police work in fiction is a Police Procedural. See also and compare with: Criminal Procedural, Forensic Drama, Law Procedural) Police Procedural (A Police Procedural is concerned with an accurate representation of the day to day realities and procedures of the police. It's a very specific sub-genre of crime fiction. The Police Procedural is almost the antithesis of the Cop Show. The Police Procedural is characterized by the lack of emphasis on the character's personal lives and the increased focus on the nuts-and-bolts of law enforcement. This term is also sometimes used specifically to describe the "Reverse Whodunnit" style of crime drama made famous by Columbo, despite the fact that most examples have very little to do with actual police procedure. Note that the focus on "realistic" police work doesn't mean the show has to be set in "reality". A show looking at the day-to-day routine of the Space Police is still a procedural. Both the Police Procedural and the Cop Show are sometimes called "Precinct Shows". See also: Criminal Procedural, Forensic Drama, Buddy Cop Show, Cop Show) Wiktionary, Sept. 30, 2016 (policier (plural policiers) - English: (film, often italicized) A police movie, particularly one based on a police novel) Oxford dictionaries website, Sept. 30, 2016 (policier: A film based on a police novel, portraying crime and its detection by police) Webster's new world college dictionary, c2010, via yourdictionary.com, Sept. 30, 2016 (policier: a novel, TV drama, or, esp., film focusing on a realistic depiction of the work of the police in investigating a crime or crimes) Google search, Nov. 7, 2016: (hit counts, all searches combined with "television": Cop shows: 160,000; Police procedurals: 62,000; policiers: 234,000 (most hits on first several pages are in French); Precinct shows: 578, most irrelevant) |
| Invalid LCCN | sh2008025517 |
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