COPS in Essex

Right: Fridays, 8 p.m. GMT

So there's this show on BBC 5 called Police Interceptors. Among the terrestrial channels BBC 5 is the one that runs American crime dramas like CSI, NCIS, and Law & Order, but this is a homegrown show about a homegrown high-speed police interception units. To be fair, I've only seen part of one episode, but I've gotta say it seemed rather typically British to me that it concluded with the Essex interceptor unit pulling over a young woman who was driving without insurance. In addition to an automatic six points on her license, they impounded her car. The excitement was very nearly unbearable.

Now I know the Essex interceptor unit regularly bag drug dealers and other major criminal types, but the fact that they chose to focus on the plight of an ‘Essex girl’ – over here Essex girl jokes occupy same evolutionary niche as ‘blonde’ jokes in the States – illustrates a major difference between U.S. and British shows that deal with crime. In Yank crime drama a suspect who protests his innocence nearly always turns out to be guilty after the cops leave the interview and talk about what a liar they think he is, and then go out and prove it. British TV cops are far more likely to argue that the suspect seems genuine, so they’d better go out and find the real perp, and far more often that turns out to be the case. In general – and admittedly based on an incomplete knowledge of the shows involved – American TV cops seem to me to focus more on the dark side of human nature than their British counterparts.

Robert Anton Wilson once asked: “If all T.V. shows about the police went off the air, and instead we had an equal number of T.V. shows about landlords, how would this change the average American reality-tunnel?”

Of course British TV’s already done landlords, from Basil Fawlty to Peggy Mitchell of EastEnders. They’re okay with that. And the majority of the crime drama on offer seems to be imported from the States: those same endless series with either strings of initials or Ice T, where the majority of civilians turn out to be perpetrators of one kind or another. It's difficult for me to imagine shows like this coming out of the U.K.

One would hope not too much of that attitude will rub off on our British friends, but then the Brits have already embraced Starbucks and Kentucky Fried Chicken, so there may be no hope for them at this point.