Crime

Just the facts: Webb played Sergeant Joe Friday with flat affect and documentary narration, the LAPD procedural as a straight face...

Raymond Burr defended the innocent for nine seasons with a record of confessions extracted on the witness stand. The courtroom for...

A jazz soaked private eye in a nightclub world, scored by Henry Mancini with a bass line that became a standard covered by the Blu...

Just one more thing: Peter Falk as the rumpled lieutenant in a trench coat and a cigar, inverting the mystery by showing the murde...

Jim Rockford, ex con turned private eye, lived in a trailer by the ocean, got paid when he could, and left answering machine messa...

MTV cops: pastel suits, needle drops, Art Deco architecture, a Ferrari, and a pet alligator. Michael Mann executive polish made th...

Oxford, a Jaguar, real ale, crosswords, opera, and Colin Dexter cameos in nearly every film. John Thaw as Morse and Kevin Whately ...

Ripped from the headlines: the first half police, the second half prosecutors, joined by the iconic chung chung scene change. The ...

DCI Jane Tennison, played by Helen Mirren, fought institutional sexism and killers across seven series. La Plante wrote research h...

Dennis Franz as Sipowicz, a drunk detective finding redemption across twelve seasons, the longest character arc on television at t...

Tony Soprano, waste management boss, panic attacks, and a therapist: the mob boss in midlife crisis. James Gandolfini delivered th...

Baltimore as institutional tragedy: the drug trade, the docks, city hall, the schools, the press. Simon, a Baltimore Sun reporter,...

Vic Mackey and the Farmington strike team. Michael Chiklis corrupt cop charisma won the first Best Drama Emmy for basic cable, bre...

Eliot Ness versus Al Capone in Depression Chicago, narrated by Walter Winchell like a machine gun dispatch. Robert Stack as Ness, ...

Steve McGarrett and his state police unit fight spies, gangsters, and Wo Fat with the Pacific as backdrop. Twelve seasons of locat...

Who loves ya, baby? Telly Savalass lollipop sucking, bald Lieutenant Theo Kojak worked Manhattan with wit and a moral code underne...

Two plainclothes cops in Bay City: one intense, one blond, one Ford Torino with a white stripe. The buddy cop template for televis...

Jack Regan and George Carter, Flying Squad officers who kick doors first and read rights never. John Thaw and Dennis Waterman, loc...

Three women, one unseen boss on a speakerphone, and cases that rarely required detection. Aaron Spelling sold it on the poster log...

Thomas Magnum, private investigator, lives in Robin Masters guest house, borrows the Ferrari, and breaks the fourth wall. Tom Sell...

Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher, a mystery novelist from Cabot Cove, Maine, the murder capital of the fictional world. Twelve ...