Cop shows won’t just disappear. How can we reinvent them?

In recent weeks, as protests against police violence have spread nationwide in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, TV critics and others who cover the medium have raised a frequent refrain: Cancel all the cop shows.

Kelly Lawler, TV critic for USA Today, wrote an excellent piece that summarized the problem as one of overrepresentation. There are so many cop shows, and most of them depict police officers as brave, stalwart heroes. It’s inevitable that the idea of the police as effective guardians of the public, constantly and selflessly putting themselves in harm’s way, would leak out into the national subconscious.