By Tom Shales
Tuesday, September 21, 2010 ........ Finally, there's perhaps the coppiest cop show of the century so far, the soppy and self-satirizing CBS melodrama "Blue Bloods," about an entire family -- "the Reagans" yet! -- involved in the crime biz, including Bridget Moynahan as an assistant district attorney, plus Donnie Wahlberg and Will Estes as young cops, and Len Cariou as Grandpa Cop. And the patriarch? That fuzz-lipped stiff Tom Selleck as Frank Reagan, chief of police. It must have been in Selleck's contract that he wouldn't have to do much more than get in and out of cars and make speeches, the first one on the first show a snoozer staged in Madison Square Garden, where graduating cops include one of Frank's boys.
As often happens on cop shows, police brutality is seen as a necessary evil because crooks are so mean and, of course, because the courts have become so lenient. You don't hear TV cops griping because they have to enforce some Draconian law that shouldn't be on the books in the first place, or lamenting vindictive excesses in sentencing. Hollywood, supposedly a frothing cauldron of liberalism, has always been conservative on crime.
In "Blue Bloods," Wahlberg as the family hothead "waterboards" a suspect by nearly drowning him in a toilet. The cop will face possible punishment, we're told, but the audience is primed to take the his side; after all, the criminal is a pervert who locked a little girl in a storage container. Meanwhile there are muttered allusions to such moderately topical matters as "what went on in Iraq" while Wahlberg's character was serving there, perhaps part of a ploy to balance the show's politics.
Another subplot involves an investigation into an ancient secret society among police, of which Daddy Reagan may be a member. But these aren't really "issue issues" dealt with meaningfully and thoughtfully; the crime show has retreated from the bold, brave controversy of the breakthrough shows.
Crime dramas will never go away as long as people turn to television for, among other things, reassurance and comfort. This season's crop might be slightly more reactionary and conservative than last year's, however, because terrorists have made the world seem even less safe. The cop shows still concentrate on good old-fashioned murders and robberies; too much fantasy terrorism can backfire and frighten viewers away.
Police officers for the most part remain salts of the earth, earnestly honest and, of course, true blue. When the Reagans of "Blue Bloods" sit down for a family dinner, they look like they're waiting for Norman Rockwell to rush in and paint their picture.
Blue Bloods (one hour) Premieres Friday at 10 p.m. on CBS.
Read the ntire article here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/20/AR2010092005523_2.html?sid=ST2010092005814
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