Best TV, Chiklis' The Shield
FX's Michael Chiklis Starrer Underappreciated as Top TV
The Shield has been the top show on TV for years now, but has not received the Emmy and critical kudos some weaker broadcast fare like Lost and The West Wing have.
Cop Drama
The Shield debuted in 2002 as the highest rated premiere of an original series in cable television history. Critics praised it then and they still do today, six seasons in. Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker wrote of the sixth season of The Shield, “Note The Shield's now-total mastery of making every member of its large cast of characters mesh and resonate. Unlike so many multiplotted TV shows, The Shield rarely drops a costar for weeks on end before circling back.” and “No woman on a cop show, for example, has ever been as vividly delineated as CCH Pounder's newly promoted Capt. Claudette Wyms,” Time’s James Poniewozik called The Shield one of the top ten returning TV shows of 2007.
Lost Better Than The Shield?
Yet on that same list Poniewozik placed Lost as number two (The Shield was at number eight). Critics have hailed Lost’s newest season as a reminder of “How spectacular scripted network programming can be” (USA Today’s Robert Bianco), and one critic wrote, “Whoa. This stuff is good. No, superb.” (Newsday’s Diane Werts). Lost won the Emmy for best drama in 2005.
West Wing Emmys, Decline
The West Wing won the drama for best Emmy series from 2000-2003. This even as The New York Times wrote in 2002, “Maybe it happened over the summer when nobody was looking, but it happened: The West Wing jumped the shark.” (The phrase ‘jump the shark’ refers to when a TV series starts to decline).
The Shield Best Show on TV
Yet unlike Lost, which saw its ratings erode along with its quality in its third season, as Entertainment Weekly reported, “The producers admit that their demanding enterprise isn't the weekly must-see that it once was, especially during this strangely scheduled, awkwardly crafted third season” The Shield has remained must-see TV through all six of its magnificent seasons. Every year has brought potent stories, from Lem’s demise to the aftermath of Captain Aceveda’s sexual assault, to the robbery of the Armenian money train. There have been stellar guest turns from Glenn Close, Anthony Anderson, and Forest Whitaker. The show has been willing to go to extremes, but always in the service of its stories, not simply for shock value. Every episode of The Shield is jam-packed with meaning, with characters changing, with juicy drama, the type that Lost reserves for end of the season episodes. Lost might occasionally throw in a filler episode, straining to fill its 20+ episode seasons. But The Shield, with its slim episode count (usually in the mid-teens) keeps the action coming.
Emmy Love
The Shield has only won one Emmy, despite numerous nominations, and that was for lead Michael Chiklis’ portrayal of rogue cop Vic Mackey in 2002. The stellar work of its magnificent supporting cast, including Walton Goggins as guilt-wracked Shane, Michael Jace as deeply Christian closeted homosexual Julian, Jay Karnes as the awkward but brilliant detective “Dutch”, and CCH Pounder as the bulldog station chief Claudette, has yet to be rewarded with an Emmy.
One More Chance
With its seventh and final season set to air September 2, 2008, Emmy voters and critics will have one last shot to give The Shield the respect it deserves as the best show on TV.
