A Listicle of American Police Procedurals

I will go out on a not-so-perilous limb and opine that most American police procedural TV shows owe their essential form to the 87th Precinct novels by Ed McBain.

Same basic cast of characters, over and over? Check. Cops’ private lives interwoven into plot? Check. A mix of ordinary, stupid crime and gaudier endeavors? Check. Recurring villains? Check.

So using the McBain template, what American cop shows are worth a look?

Law & Order: This procedural ran for 20 years, from 1990-2010, and rarely deviated from the formula of cops investigate crime, district attorney prosecutes crime, justice is (sometimes) served. The earliest episodes feature Michael Moriarty as prosecutor Ben Stone, wearing the last sack suit seen in American media. The Golden Age of the show revolves around Jerry Orbach as Detective Lennie Briscoe (seasons 3 through 14). Tight scripts, solid acting, and topical subjects. Immensely rewatchable. You can buy the episodes or seasons or just wait for them to come around again on regular TV.

Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct: You’ll have to go to the DVD for this 1961-62 effort, with 30 episodes in the box set. You’ll get appearances by Robert Culp, Peter Falk and a zillion other character actors of the time (just like “Law & Order”). Not nearly as gritty as the novels, but what do you expect from 1961?

Spenser for Hire: I lived in Boston in the mid-1980s when this show was running, and my flatmates — one college pal and three dental students — devised a drinking game based on geographic anomalies in the show. (There were a lot. It got ugly. One of the dentists dropped out and went home to New Hampshire.)

I rewatched the entire three-season run this past winter and found it much better — and grittier — than I remembered. This is not the case for the four TV movies which followed the series’ demise in 1988. Those struck me as sanitized and, frankly, pretty tedious.

How to watch: I’m sure I watched the regular seasons for free (with ads) on some service, but that seems to have changed and Amazon Prime wants to nick me for $25 for the first season only. 

Columbo: If you want free, watch seven seasons’ worth of “Columbo” on IMDb TV, which is one of those free-with-ads deals. Thrill as Columbo gets cigar ash on his grubby raincoat! Get a shiver up your spine as That Guy Who Played Whosiewhatsit in Whatchamacallit makes his nefarious plans! Marvel at how Americans drove gigantic cars and even parallel parked!

And, finally, no listicle on this subject would be complete without “Dragnet,” which is available from a number of different sources. Jack Webb was an amazing actor in that he never moved his lips or upper body. Well, almost never. He was also very well dressed. The stories reflect the times, and as such will probably be banned soon. So dial it up while you can.