Why Doesn t COPS Get Credit For Modernizing Reality Television?
It all started in 1988. Yes. That far back.
In the fair year 1988, producer/writer/director John Langley created Fox Broadcasting Company's televisions series COPS. And ever since then, we've been treated to the best of the worst of America. And we've eaten up every gruesome second of it.
With only a camera operator and a boom microphone person riding along, intrepid law enforcement officers (happy to have us riding along all through the night) have given us more than just a peek into what really happens out in streets when push comes to shove. And what happens out there, thanks to COPS unfortunately doesn't stay out there.
(How ironic that COPS seems to produce so many of its more memorable installments from Las Vegas?)
From the meth labs to the crack dens to the car chases and the bank shootouts, the long-running FBC reality program, currently in its 19th season, pioneered the often emulated video verite format. Nineteen years! That's like...um...118 in television years!
But has COPS gotten anywhere near the credit it so rightly deserves?
Sadly, no.
As rising television production costs forced producers in Los Angeles and New York to find more entertainment for less buck, COPS saved the day. And PROVED that our appetite for all things real is insatiable.
What came after COPS was, quite honestly, a parade of newer and more real television. And the media took notice several years ago welcoming the likes of 'Survivor' and 'The Bachelor' as setting the new standards in cost effective reality television.
And do we hear COPS mentioned as the media pundits throw out their praises? No, we don't.
As I wonder aloud why COPS doesn't get the credit it deserves for modernizing reality television, I come to one conclusion from all of the television brilliance that COPS has provided me every Saturday night at 8 AND at 8:30 pm: and that is this...
Without question, moving to a city where the show COPS has been filmed more than twice is living dangerously!