"The Shield" Not your typical cop show.

While infirm this Spring, I caught the end of the fifth year of the series on FX with Michael Chiklis as detective Vic Mackey and Forrest Whitaker as the Internal Affairs detective investigating him, and I was hooked on the show. I finally got the DVD for the first year last week.

Wow, what a show, especially now that I understand the histories of the characters. Of course, it is testosterone filled and convoluted action, but well written and acted with a fine cast. The action revolves around "The Barn," the police stationhouse in the Farmington section of LA, and follows the day-to-day police lives of several characters that range from the a aforementioned star, character Vic Mackey, and his band of crime strikers, detectives, and beat cops.

When "The Shield" premiered in 2002 it earned the most Emmy nominations ever for a basic cable show and Chiklis won an Emmy for outstanding lead actor in a drama series.

The show delves into drugs, gangs, violent crimes and follows the personal lives of the officers and the internal politics inside and outside of the police station.

The story lines interweave narratives of corrupted cops who edge up to the line where the rules are drawn and how they creep over it, a gay cop hiding (or dealing with) his orientation, single cop motherhood, power plays on the street and in the police captain's office.

In the fourth season, the actress Glenn Close became the police captain running the Barn and she brought to the show a level of oh, I guess "sophistication" to the show.

Actually, after watching the first year on DVD, the show was so compelling that I went out and bought the DVD's for the next three year's worth of shows and watched the each season's thirteen yearly episodes within ten days time. Once started, it was hard to stop watching because I wanted to see what happened next.

The show will be back for season six this fall.

Any other fans out there?

ps: as much as I love to watch Michael Chiklis chew up the scenery, my favorite characters are CCH Pounder as Claudette Wyms, a middle aged black Detective whose ethics and morality have caused her to lose out on becoming the next captain after season three and Jay Karnes as a bright and semi-geeky detective named Dutch Wagenbach who is teamed with Wyms. their chemistry is a beaut to watch.