Have you seen the CBS police drama Flashpoint?
It is set in Toronto and follows a SWAT-like police team. Each episode is based on an incident and the events leading up to it. The show is well done and actually enjoyable, but this is not meant to be a review of the show.
Unlike modern police procedurals like CSI and Law & Order, and definitely unlike cop shows of days-gone-by, there are no bad guys in Flashpoint. Only victims. By placing the perpetrator in context, the show’s creators hope to demonstrate that he, too, is a mere victim.
What separates Flashpoint from its predecessors is the gray between black and white. We all know it is there, has always been there, but this show is the first that I can remember that is less about the good guys and the bad guys, and all about the gray.
That is to say, Flashpoint is a cop show that only a postmodern sophisticate could appreciate. Really. I can hear them now: Well actually, I only watch the latest productions of Austen and Brontë on Masterpiece Theater myself. But, if you commoners insist on watching cops & robbers, of course, context is everything.
And well, who can argue with that?
The problem is that the creators of Flashpoint have replaced the terribly passé concept of motive with a modern (and no doubt they would argue, more comprehensive) attitude towards context. Thereby, mostly also removing the concepts of good and bad in the process.
Like society in general, the show loses something in this transition. It is certainly old-fashioned to point out that some things are right and some things are wrong. I know, call me simple-minded. But, it does not really matter why you flew planes into those buildings killing thousands of innocents. Likewise, even in the fantasy world of television, it does not really matter why you are holding a gun on that woman.
Geez, how I long for Dragnet.