The Top 10 Cops in the History of TV

In preparation for the beginning of the new TV season, here is my list of the ten greatest characters to wear the badge in TV land. As is the way with most top 10 lists, it’s more about raising discussion than definitive ranking, so feel free to comment or add your own list.

10: Sergeant Kay Howard (Melissa Leo) on Homicide, Life on the Streets.
It’s rare for ‘real’ women to appear on TV, and Howard was a rare example of that. She looked and sounded like what a female Baltimore homicide detective probably looked and sounded like. Homicide began to decline when they replaced Kay with good looking women detectives, wiping some of the grit and realism off the show. Howard was one of a kind.

9: Officer Carl Winslow (Reginald VelJohnson) on Family Matters.
One of the few beat cops on the list, Carl was less about the war on crime, and more about the family life. A great example that not all cops are tormented justice-seekers, but normal working class joes with a loving family, occasionally having to deal with disappearing daughters and having to act as father figures to the freaky mad scientist who lives next door. And he helped both Balky and John McClane on separate occasions.

8: Sergeant Joe Friday (Jack Webb) on Dragnet
He was the first, and he got the job done with style. And a catchy beat.

7: Det. Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) on NYPD Blue
As many high school kids who have had their weed ‘confiscated’ know, lots of cops are dicks. Good old Andy was a prick with the best of them. Drunk, racist, and generally angry, Sipowicz was only really good at one thing, being a cop. He would be higher on this list, but near the end of the run the show got ridiculous with putting Sipowicz through hell (by the end, I think anyone remotely related to him had been horribly murdered). But Dennis Franz’s ballsy portrayal of shitty dude trying to be a good cop deserves note.

6: Detective Lennie Brisco (Jerry Orbach) on Law and Order
On a show designed around a revolving door cast, Brisco is one of the benchmarks. He nailed a sense of world-weary optimism that endeared him to the audience year after year. Always charming, but never overwhelming. It’s hard to believe the show worked before him, and it lost something when he left.

5: Detective John Munch (Richard Belzer) on Any Show That Will Have Him.
No single character has been on more different TV shows (9 in total, check out IMDB) then Munch. That’s not an accident. Munch is Gallows Humor personified, a wisecracking imp making witty observations about the worst of mankind. He is the new icon for TV detective.

4: Det. James McNulty (Dominic West) on The Wire
I am not a huge Wire guy, but you can’t talk about cops shows without admitting that The Wire changes everything about what the genre could do. As the face of the show (if it has a face, but he is the most recognizable character) McNulty is both a symptom and a victim of the decay of Baltimore. Whether he is peeing on a railtrack as the train approaches, or inventing fake serial killers in order to get funding, McNulty is a dark side of the American legal system.

3: Detective Bobby Simone (Jimmy Smits) on NYPD Blue.
Now this was a cop. Bobby was the neighborhood guy who done good, doing the Job when the kids he grew up with were playing the other side. Jimmy Smits played him as the calm ying to Sipowicz’s batshit crazy yang, but Bobby always felt like the cop you wanted to be out there. His years on Blue were hands down the show’s strongest.

2: Detective Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) from The Shield
Good Cop and Bad Cop have gone home for the day; he is a different type of cop. One of the first antiheros of modern cable, Vic is one half righteous vigilante, one half criminal mastermind. The most unique cop on our list, Vic puts self preservation first, justice second, and the law somewhere in the back. Just never ask what’s in the bag.

1: Detective Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) on Homicide, Life on the Streets
Arrogant, uncompromising, brilliant. Frank was a speaker of the dead, avenging any loss of life with the power of the Truth. Andre Braugher’s career making performance was a powerhouse portrayal of a man who believed his job was a calling. Highlights include his crisis of faith throughout season 3 (from the White Glove Murders to his own brush with mortality) to his incredible stroke scene. And there might not be a better hour of television than “Three Men and Adena.” Frank Pembleton is in a class all his own.

There ya go. You will note that three cops come from the same show. That is not an accident.

Here real quick is the top ten Movie Cops

1: John McClane

2-9: Eight cops not as cool as John McClane.

10: Robocop.