You would never know it from its muted publicity, but Channel 4 is broadcasting one of the best shows ever created. All4 has just begun streaming all seven seasons of The Shield, the critically lionised cop drama that ran from 2002 to 2008 on the then-little-known basic cable channel FX.

Right from its pulsating first episode, The Shield drags you by the scruff of the neck and hurls you into the thick of the action with the Strike Team. This four-man crew of corrupt cops is led by detective Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis), a character as compelling as any from the prestige TV era. The show’s creator, Shawn Ryan, took inspiration from the real-life Rampart scandal of the 90s. “There were these cops who were running roughshod over this poor ethnic neighbourhood and yet they were effectively stopping a lot of crime. It was an interesting ethical question.”

Strike Team ... (from left) Michael Chiklis, Kenneth Johnson, Walton Goggins, Benito Martinez. Photograph: Fox TV/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

The show places the viewer at the heart of that ethical question. Extensive use of handheld cameras and Steadicam gives the series a documentary feel and a sense that you are looking over the shoulder of the Strike Team, almost complicit with them, creating a rare intimacy. It feels as if you’re being let in on a grimy, sleazy secret – which, ultimately, you are.



It isn’t as if Mackey is the first dicey cop to bend a few rules to get the job done, but his game is on a whole other level. He makes Dirty Harry look like Barney Miller. As Baltimore PD on The Wire spent five years losing the war on drugs, the Strike Team flipped the script by cutting out their own piece of the pie. Mackey’s crew plant, steal and sell drugs and murder rival dealers as drug barons look on aghast. It’s hard to make a dishonest living when the cops are more crooked than you.



Predictably enough, the higher-ups are on to Mackey. Very early on, would-be nemesis Captain David Aceveda says of him: “[He’s] not a cop. He’s Al Capone with a badge.” Knowing you have a wrong ’un in the ranks and proving it are two different things, however. Mackey is ferociously intelligent, utterly ruthless and terrifyingly brave. Watching him keep one step ahead of Aceveda, Internal Affairs and drug lords is one of the joys of the show.

He is, after all, our protagonist. There is no one like Line of Duty’s Steve Arnott, Ted Hastings or Kate Fleming at the heart of this show. Mackey is all we have. That you end up sympathising, even identifying with him is testament to Ryan’s deft characterisation and Chiklis’s magnificent performance. For all his flaws, Mackey sincerely loves his wife and autistic son and has a vulnerability and wit that makes it hard to hate him even when you know he’s indefensible.

FX took a risk investing in original scripted drama, but it paid off handsomely. In the show’s first year, Chiklis won the first acting Emmy for a basic cable drama. Previously known as a dumping ground for kids’ TV, classic movies and TV repeats, basic cable now had an entirely new business model. Other basic cable channels took note, notably AMC, which followed the FX template to produce Mad Men and Breaking Bad, which made their own history.

What usually happens with a great show that runs for this length is a gradual waning of its powers as the series arc runs its course and the major players become distracted by other projects. If things get really bad, you wind up doing a Dexter, writing off your entire legacy with a clown car ending. The Shield, however, broke new ground once again with a stunning seventh season – arguably its best. The finale, Family Meeting, is regarded by many critics as one of the best in TV history. The show went out as it had entered – utterly uncompromising, confounding expectations, bold and mercurial to the last. If you talk about the golden age of TV without mentioning The Shield, you’re doing it wrong.