The eagerly-awaited season premiere of “Cops” — that is, eagerly awaited here in Beaumont, Texas — may just as easily been renamed “Ads.” You know, as in: “Ad boys, ad boys what’cha gonna do, what’cha gonna do when you bore us blue … ”
Spike TV’s long-running live police show, part-docudrama and part “reality” series, previewed last night with two of our local officers featured in what the Cops Website said was a 3-minute, 26-second, segment. Really? Because it seemed shorter than that. Maybe it was because the show was basically one long foot chase punctuated by TV commercial, after TV commercial, after TV commercial, etc., before the next short segment featured another department and its officers in some similar police situation.
I don’t know the officers who were on the segment last evening. At least, I don’t recall the officers. The fresh faces kind of all look the same to be truthful. I’m sure some folks said that about my fire academy classmates and me after we began riding those big red trucks. The only difference was that hair, at least some hair, was in vogue back in the day. The hairless dome look is popular these days, especially among the male police population. Not that I am complaining. I have the same look. The two policemen were engaging enough and didn’t smack the perp with a flashlight or Taze him once the “actor” was in custody.
Now I admit that I liked the opening scene for the Beaumont segment which starts with a shot of downtown from a view looking over the Neches River. The scene pans along the river and includes the 17-story Edison Plaza building, which if nothing else, will catch your eye when passing through town on Interstate 10.
The substance of the Beaumont Police segment was actually pretty tame all things considered. Actually, the city has enough mischief happening that might fill an hour-long program without the pesky commercials. Just in the last 24 hours, for instance, there were five people shot in three separate incidents. Luckily, at least according to media reports, none of the victims suffered “life-threatening” gunshot wounds. I have staked out way too many police scenes, and hardly does such a scene possess the minutes of action necessary for sustaining a docudrama such as Cops. For instance, the time when the police stopped me while walking to a local bar and then threatened to arrest me for walking on the wrong side of the road exhibited no real drama except for that which was going on inside my brain. I can sometimes lose my cool, I am told this stems from depression, and the results isn’t always pretty. Fortunately, I have always maintained my cool when faced with a situation that might result in that dreaded clanking of steel doors behind me.
I hope more scenes from our fair city are highlighted on Cops. It is nice to see familiar spots on TV even if they are populated by criminals. For my TV consumption, that is about the only way I would watch the show except perhaps adding sheer boredom as a reason. The problem with Cops is you’ve seen it all before. That is why it was finally dropped by Fox TV and now maintains a much lower presence beyond syndication. I mean, how many times can you watch some methed-up pendejo with his shirt off and his drawers showing?
And finally, commercials. I know a show must have commercials to survive. There is no doubt about this. But I would bet many, many viewers other than myself “go off” when six or seven ads are piggy-backed and the substance results in a top-heavy commercials-to-program ratio.
So I say good job to the Beaumont officers in the starring role on Cops. They didn’t embarrass out community nor themselves. And everyone made it home that day. Well, I don’t know about the fleet-footed perpetrator. But something tells me he didn’t spend a lot of time in the Jefferson County Correctional Facility.
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