Really?
I've just sat through the first episode and have to say, as one who was a police officer living and working at the time and in the areas portrayed, I recognised very little, apart from a few Triumph Heralds and Ford Cortina's.
Actors portraying uniformed police officers were wearing helmets that would have been more suited to the London Fire Brigade, with chinstraps* worn horribly wrong (*nothing new there) and on demo duty they were issued with baseball bats - oh really? Where was that? Portraying officers indecently assaulting a lead female character during a search on the street, after first having punched her in the face for swearing at him, but then walking off? Such casual police violence I never did see. Maybe this happened to someone who heard it from someone who was told it happened to someone else.
I am aware of the phenomenon known as looking through rose-tinted glasses and I did encounter officers, during my 32 years service, who clearly had anger management problems, had a tendency to bully, who liked to invade the personal space of females (which workplace doesn't have such people?) and some who used excessive force but, from my perspective, widespread this most definitely was not; quite the opposite, it was rare. It must also be borne in mind that a past viewed through black tinted lenses can be equally distorted and in the case of this drama and probably for dramatic effect, deliberately so.
I was disappointed to see lead actors, whose talents I have great respect for, going along with this. But I suppose a job's a job. I've seen enough.
3 comments:
Welcome back, like you I don't watch many TV cop dramas as I find them inaccurate and over the top, true the past wasn't perfect but if you believe the TV most of us 70's vintage cops would have been thrown out of the SS for being too nasty.
Do you shout at historical clips on the news as well? They have researchers but they don't seem to do any researching. My favourite was a piece about the Battle of Britain that showed the Luftwaffe attacking USAAF planes over Germany.
I also get upset when the RN in WW2 is mentioned and they show clips of USN battleships in the pacific.
Yes, I do need to get out more.
Retired
Hello Retired. Well thanks for the welcome `back`. I've been heavily engaged elsewhere with these random things that seem to fill the days of us retirees. I'm writing a lot, elsewhere, and almost forgot I had this little room in the ether. I'll dust the shelves off and see what I can see.
PS. Have you read Tony Long's book? The guy did a nice job.
I have yet to read Tony Log's but it is on my list of things to do. Like you I fill my days and I have reached a state of Zen-like calm with regard to the ongoing destruction of the UK police and armed services. I do like saying 'I told you so' to people now.
Retired
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