Saturday, March 23, 2013

(Sucked into?!) "The Shield"

I am, most definitely, a crime buff:  true crimes, police shows, English mysteries ...

... of the more modern-day, gritty reality in a "dammed dirty old city" shows - Hill Street Blues was the first one that I remember in that genre that stuck to me, became part of me - the vocabulary, the episodes, the characters ... The absolute #1 of all time (in my humble opinion) will always be "NYPD Blue", with my tv boyfriend, Andy Sipowicz, who always stepped out in style, spoke in Andy-isms, and dammit it to hell, came back each and every single time you thought he was counted out! ....

I watched "The Wire" enough to follow it, enough to recommend it to someone who enjoyed it, too - but eventually it just hit me as a very dark show - one that turned my head around backwards and inwards, to a very depressed place, a hole it would suck me into - and that's not good for me!  As someone recently said to me about such dark shows - "No, no, Jean!  Go w/ The Six Million Dollar Man!" - nostalgia, innocence, a ending where all the characters find something to laugh about ... and I've done that, and shall continue to do so, with many shows in that genre! ... But about those dark police shows --

I was afraid of "The Shield" when I realized (dashing through Wiki entries) what it was - and where it could take me emotionally ... so for quite a while now - seeing it pop up on Hulu, and Amazon -- it wasn't something I thought I should be "as close as to give a kiss to" next to the computer screen, watching it ...

And then

I did

You can even say -- I binged.  Beginning to end the poor dog didn't even get to sit outside with me on this nice day and I didn't get too much sleep last night because

I. Just. Had. To. Finish!  This was a show that gripped me like adjustable to fit in the waistline pants!!! and especially in more recent tv shows - with there emphasis on the dead, the undead, the sucking (vampires as well as soft porn) - there is, sadly!, very few shows I can say THAT about ;-

YES - dark, alot to pull this lady blogger here into the spot that "The Wire" did BUT --

Even tho it was quite dark, quite intense, not one you could be caught snoozing thru!  ( there were even times I had to go back because I didn't quite catch what was said )  there were other parts to this show that captivated me -- and -- in no particular order:

The interiors of people's living spaces & there varying styles of decor.

Dutch Wagenbach:  a tv boyfriend, yes! someone I wouldn't mind AT ALL sitting around in my pajamas in the morning over coffee discussing his profiling and crime knowledge!

How deeply there lies and deceptions affected even peripheral people - especially the children!  I wrote a little bit about the Macky kids, post Witness protection, before the show even swam out to that buoy, and I want to work on that some more (errr -- after I rest!).

The friendships in here: both the kind of friendships that lead you to the bad places (i.e. The Strike Team), as well as the sustaining ones (i.e. Dutch & Claudette).
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I know I want to go back and watch this all over again - for at least the reason that each episode has a theme name and I like to try to see if I can 'catch' all the references to that title :) 

I know I have email, other shows, YouTube videos, and people who are wondering if I'm off frolicking somewhere ;) , to catch up on first!  And sleep!  let's not forget THAT SMALL DETAIL (zzz) ;)

I did recognize one thing missing here, tho:  someone to watch the show with - a person you sit down and watch the show with every week, and you have your own cozy place, and lines in the show, and shared looks, and long conversations, about what you're watching ... CoCo doesn't really watch tv - in fact, she doesn't like alot of sirens and gunshots !

If this was one of 'your shows', I'd love to hear what you thought about it!


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