The Shield

		Biography
		Life Story
		Life and Career
		The Shield Series
		Detective Vic Mackey
		Awards & Nominations

The Shield is an American police drama television series shown on FX Networks and other networks around the world. The show is notable for its controversial portrayal of corrupt police officers. The first season gained the most Emmy nominations ever for a basic cable drama. The series was created by Shawn Ryan.

The Shield is about an experimental police precinct set up in the fictional Farmington neighborhood ("the Farm") of Los Angeles, using a converted church ("the Barn") as their police station. Although Michael Chiklis has top billing with his portrayal of Detective Vic Mackey, the show has an ensemble cast that will normally run a number of separate story lines through each episode.

Detective Mackey is the leader of the Strike Team, a four-man anti-gang unit based on the LAPD's real-life Rampart Division CRASH unit. The Strike Team uses a variety of violent and extortive methods to maintain peace on the streets, while maintaining their own profits through drug protection schemes and robbery. Much like its inspiration, the Strike Team isn't above planting drugs on and coercing confessions out of gang members. Attempts to give the team a fifth member have frequently led to near-catastrophe for the group.

The Shield has a variety of subplots specific to the main characters, notably David Aceveda's political aspirations, Vic Mackey's struggle to cope with a failing marriage, and Julien Lowe's internal conflicts between his belief in the teachings of the Bible and his latent homosexuality.

Common themes are the citizens' distrust of police, the social impact of drugs and gang warfare, and the conflict between ethics and political expediency. Most characters are portrayed as having both vice and virtue. For example, Vic's loving relationship with his children contrasts with his thuggish attitude towards police work.

The Shield has won much praise for its realism, and one area in which this is particularly noticeable is its portrayal of gang violence in Los Angeles. Although names of actual gangs are not used, the portrayals are based in reality. Latino gangs with names such as "Los Magnificos" (or "Los Mags") and the "Toros" are a constant thorn in the Strike Team's side in the early seasons of the show, whilst African American gangs become more prominent in later episodes. In particular, a gang calling themselves the "One-Niners" are central to the plot of Season 4. Like the notorious real-life Blood and Crip gangs, the One-Niners identify themselves strongly with one color (in this case purple), wearing it on various forms of clothing.

Finally, to further its realistic mood, the show makes very little use of background music.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors, This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "The Shield".

All original content , Copyright ©2004-2006 WestLord.com , All Rights Reserved