A few rules: let’s restrict ourselves to more-or-less real-world police women, okay? No fantasy or scifi characters. Also no spies. I’m only interested in actual police officers, not Tasha Yar.
I’ll start with Anita Van Buren from the original Law & Order. God, did that woman rock. Not merely was she a reasonable authority figure and pillar of personal integrity, not only did she always act to protect both the public in general and her detectives in particular, but she was devious, in a good way. Every so often they (the writers, that is) would put in her the interrogation room, and she’d always demonstrate that it wasn’t any sort of affirmative action that got her her job; it was brute competence.
And yet she wasn’t idealized. For one thing she wasn’t fashion-model beautiful; she was an ordinary-looking woman. She had moods, she had faults, she was sometimes in the wrong. She felt real in a way that nobody on CSI ever does.
There’s a woman in my building who is a dead ringer for Police Woman, from the dye-blond flip-do to the being 50 but trying to look 30. It takes everything I have to not call her ‘Pepper.’
Brenda Leigh Johnson (The Closer) is a wonderfully effective policewoman and a beautifully flawed character. It’s fun to see her zero in on a suspect as well as to observe her personal quirks. To its credit, the show is mainly about the former and does not overdo the latter.
The former is such a realistic, and unusual, character, and the actress is amazing. When she was at the docks crying, for reasons that people who saw that episode will definitely remember, she made me feel like crying too, and that doesn’t often happen to me.
Beckett is just fucking cool.
I also liked Cagney. Not Lacey - too mumsy, too toothy (it always looked like she was wearing those candy teeth), but Cagney was a hard-arse with a sense of humour.
If we are just talking about attractive actresses who play cops, I think that Kathryn Morris, who plays Detective Lilly Rush on “Cold Case” is stunning, and I say that as someone who is NOT normally attracted to blondes.
Cold Case is the only hour long cop drama I can ever remember watching (I only got turned onto it about a year or so ago, by watching late night re-runs on the weekends; I never saw the show while it was still airing on CBS) and while it’s pretty laughable most of the time, the show features some excellent music and interesting period costumes. (1/2 of each episode is shown in flashback form).
Anyway, Ms. Morris is truly lovely, and I would gladly watch any other shows she is in given the chance.
I certainly hope we AREN’T just talking about that. If I had meant to, I would have titled the thread “Let’s talk about the hottest tv cops,” and I wouldn’t have led off with Anita Van Buren. S. Epatha Merkerson is a wonderful actress, but she’s hardly a great beauty.
Kay Howard from * Homicide: Life on the Street.* No-nonsense, uber-competant, and utterly delightful. Honorable mention to Terri Stivers from the same series.
Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) from Law & Order SVU, a credible ass-kicker and totally believable in every situation they throw her into. It doesn’t hurt that the actress is Jayne Mansfield’s daughter…
I also like Alex Eames on Criminal Intent, but wish they’d made her less of a water-bearer for the Genius That Is Bobby Goren; Eames’ best moments were when we got a peek at the serious resentment she has for Goren. I just know she’s the one who put a rat in his desk drawer!
I don’t think resentment is quite the right word for Eames’ feelings about Bobby. Or, rather, she resented herself quite as much as she resented him, because the rational part of her knew early on that, for the sake of her career, she needed a different partner. But she loved him and couldn’t bear to.
The best Eames-Goren moment is in the episode with Colum Meaney on trial. Meaney’s lawyer, trying to discredit Goren, brings up an old letter from her personnel file in which she asked for a new partner (she’d withdrawn the request before he ever knew about it). She’s horrified that he knows now, and comes close to begging him for forgiveness; Goren shrugs it off before she can, because he, of course, isn’t about to let anyone, including himself, hurt her if he can prevent it.
And, of course, she was the senior partner, not him; that’s why the damage to her career happened, because technically it was her job to rein him in and she rarely did.
