The Shield - Season 1

Question: What do you get when you mix a group of dirty cops, a wannabe politician, and a diverse cast of struggling humanity? Answer: The Shield, one of the edgiest shows on TV cable, The Shield broadcast on the cable channel FX.

The first season of The Shield introduces Detective Vic Mackey (played by Michael Chicklis), a gritty cop who straddles the fence of legality while leading a renegade, but effective, strike force within the Los Angeles Police Department. Mackey is a gritty, dark character with violent tendencies. Intellectually, Mackey is an ends-justify-the-means kind of guy; he is morally committed to exploiting the means to justify the ends. He comes to embody the anti-hero character-type popularized by characters such as HBO's Tony Soprano of The Sopranos and Al Swearengen of Deadwood.

In addition, Mackey also seems incapable of understanding that police work will not make your rich. With his crew, Mackey has established a "retirement fund" comprised of dirty, laundered, or just plain stolen money gleaned from the criminal underbelly the strike force seeks to eliminate.

But Mackey does find ways to get violent, sociopathic, and desperate criminals away form the general population, so despite the initial instinct to revile him, one learns to see his character in a (somewhat) forgiving light. He also displays momentarily brilliant flashes of humanity, but they are always fleeting and many times are self-serving.

Captain David Aceveda (Benito Martinez) is an aspiring city councilman who acts as the foil to Mackey. His ostensible motives are just and fair, wanting to end Mackey's reign of police terror and implement a clean, law abiding strike force.

But, like Mackey and many other characters in The Shield, Aceveda is more nuanced than he appears. His righteousness seems to stem as much from political and career ambition as it does from any pure source of moral rectitude.

Many of the plot lines that thread through Season 1 of The Shield weave the stories of Mackey and Aceveda. Mackey earns his dirty money, roughhouses criminals who probably deserve it-and some who don't-and struggles with a deteriorating marriage and a son who is diagnosed with autism. Mackey feels the pressure from Aceveda, who is looking to put him in prison, and an Assistant Police Chief (played by John Diehl) who double crosses him.

Aceveda looks for the big headlines in busting Mackey as he begins his political career fighting for a city council seat. A dirty closet threatens to squelch his candidacy and Mackey proves to be an asset to a reluctant Aceveda who becomes a rather desperate rookie politician.

The cast of characters that surround Mackey and Aceveda in The Shield struggle through alcoholism, drug abuse, infidelity, sexual identity, and serious ethical lapses-among other things. Detective Claudette Wyms (CCH Pounder), perhaps the most ethical and professional person on the force, has issues with her family; Detective "Dutch" Wagenbach struggles to fit in despite ambitions of greatness; Officer Danielle "Danny" Sofer (Catherine Dent) fights to progress her career in a testosterone-drenched industry; and Officer Julian Lowe (Michael Jace) must face his own ambiguous sexuality.

In this fast paced, heavy metal series, many of the periphery characters lack enough screen time to become fully three dimensional. The characters of that make up Mackey's strike force are particularly flat-lots of reactive, violent, badly conceived actions that seem to fulfill the bad cop stereotype with a few moments of humanity mixed in to keep them from becoming simple cartoon characters.

Despite some shortcomings, the lead roles in The Shield are acted and written well enough to keep viewers glued to the screen. Perhaps on HBO a show like this might rise to the level of top tier TV; but even on basic cable, The Shield deserves the attention of most viewers.