Looking for a fun cop show? Check out the first season or two of The Rookie. This is a mildly humorous, socially-aware cop show for chilling on sofa after a long day.
The first few seasons are solid entertainment, a cop drama with frequent comedic moments. The core premise is excellent, and Fillion is a perfect fit as the rookie whose earnest befuddlement (experience as a carpenter and dad) provides plenty of opportunities for humor. He's surrounded by a good supporting cast that has plenty of character development of their own.
Prepare to suspend some disbelief and critical thought, however. Why are rookie police officers joining SWAT assaults, having public shoot-outs with criminals, conducting car chases, infiltrating criminal groups, getting kidnapped, etc.? What exactly is everyone's work schedule? And there are a lot of side characters who just happen to be rich---in order to enable a whole bunch of additional scenarios that would logically be well out of any normal police officer's reach.
It soon suffers from the usual (unavoidable?) issues of any longer-running TV show, but hopefully by the point it happens, you'll be invested enough in the ongoing storylines to not be overly bothered by the artistic license: - A wildly unrealistic number of crazy situations for the same set of characters. - Characters with interesting back stories and struggles eventually resolve them, and then are bit less interesting--which is still better than never-resolved issues that drag on for years. - Characters leave the show as actors move on and some new additions don't work as well. - In spite of their flaws, most folks are kind and competent and solve problems.
It definitely goes downhill in later seasons, as boring/annoying characters are introduced as regulars and the plots get more far-fetched.
A major problem with almost all cop shows is that they consistently show a false, PR-friendly version of the police. The Rookie is largely caught in the same trap, with a few baby steps in the right direction. So I appreciated it when the series pivoted hard, post-George Floyd, tackling a flurry of topics relating to police corruption and social justice. However, it felt really obvious, a bit forced and heavy-handed, with the show dragging a bit as it added lots of elements it had previously ignored. Those storylines are brief, but fortunately The Rookie doesn't toss all these topics to the side once finished and the series quickly re-stabilizes once the writers are longer shoehorning topics du jour into the shooting schedule.
Review by Mister AxehandleBlockedParent2024-04-19T17:10:24Z
Looking for a fun cop show? Check out the first season or two of The Rookie. This is a mildly humorous, socially-aware cop show for chilling on sofa after a long day.
I think JR's review is the best short summary: https://trakt.tv/comments/653046
The first few seasons are solid entertainment, a cop drama with frequent comedic moments. The core premise is excellent, and Fillion is a perfect fit as the rookie whose earnest befuddlement (experience as a carpenter and dad) provides plenty of opportunities for humor. He's surrounded by a good supporting cast that has plenty of character development of their own.
Prepare to suspend some disbelief and critical thought, however. Why are rookie police officers joining SWAT assaults, having public shoot-outs with criminals, conducting car chases, infiltrating criminal groups, getting kidnapped, etc.? What exactly is everyone's work schedule? And there are a lot of side characters who just happen to be rich---in order to enable a whole bunch of additional scenarios that would logically be well out of any normal police officer's reach.
It soon suffers from the usual (unavoidable?) issues of any longer-running TV show, but hopefully by the point it happens, you'll be invested enough in the ongoing storylines to not be overly bothered by the artistic license:
- A wildly unrealistic number of crazy situations for the same set of characters.
- Characters with interesting back stories and struggles eventually resolve them, and then are bit less interesting--which is still better than never-resolved issues that drag on for years.
- Characters leave the show as actors move on and some new additions don't work as well.
- In spite of their flaws, most folks are kind and competent and solve problems.
It definitely goes downhill in later seasons, as boring/annoying characters are introduced as regulars and the plots get more far-fetched.
A major problem with almost all cop shows is that they consistently show a false, PR-friendly version of the police. The Rookie is largely caught in the same trap, with a few baby steps in the right direction. So I appreciated it when the series pivoted hard, post-George Floyd, tackling a flurry of topics relating to police corruption and social justice. However, it felt really obvious, a bit forced and heavy-handed, with the show dragging a bit as it added lots of elements it had previously ignored. Those storylines are brief, but fortunately The Rookie doesn't toss all these topics to the side once finished and the series quickly re-stabilizes once the writers are longer shoehorning topics du jour into the shooting schedule.