Detective Olivia Benson played by Mariska Hargitay in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. She has very strong features which can sometimes come across as harsh, but under halfway decent lighting, she’s a strikingly beautiful woman. While the writing seems to have at least two required Idiot Balls per episode, when she’s written even halfway decently, she’s completely believable as the daughter of an alcoholic/child of rape who grew up to make the world a safer place for victims of sex crimes.
This is the one that comes to mind.
On the show Roseanne, Jackie, Roseanne’s sister.
Molly Price as Faith Yokas on Third Watch.
(She may not look like a bikini model, but up your nose with a fire-hose if you think she doesn’t qualify as “remarkably beautiful.” Rawr.)
I have to nominate Dana Scully as one of the most totally believable female FBI agents ever, with Clarice Starling coming in a close second. Mainly because they weren’t portrayed as super-powerful or indestructible. Recently it seems like so many female authorities are able to subdue a bad guy with a well-placed karate chop and hog-tie him in 12 seconds, at which point it becomes more of a superhero story than a crime fighting/detective show.
This is what real women police officers I know are like.
If I HAD to choose, I would go with BubbaDog’s vote for Holly Hunter’s character on Saving Grace. The problem with that character is that she was so damn tiny. Yeah I know, on the show she took down large perps with ease, but I don’t know if that would happen in real life. Some huge muscular guy would be able to pick her up with one hand.
And since I have the floor, I’ve GOT to vent about the way many female police officers are portrayed on TV. I’m referring to female cop characters that spend their time out in the field, not in an office. Every time I see a show where a female cop answers a call or shows up at a crime scene wearing a damn skirt and heels, carrying a purse, wearing ultra-fashionable clothing, showing cleavage, (ugh!), or wearing her long hair down & curled with a curling iron, I’m tempted to change the channel.
Am I the only one disgusted by these portrayals? I know, sex sells and the producers have to sell the show. But couldn’t they work in the sexiness in some other scenes??
Betty Thomas on Hill Street Blues is closest to most IRL policewomen I’ve met.
I was once interviewed as a witness by woman detective. Buff, working class, and the interior of her car looked like the city dump.
Seconding Roseanne’s sister.
Also, I think Joanne Kelly on Warehouse 13, while technically a Secret Service agent and not a cop per se, is believable.
Betty Thomas is the obvious winner. The rest of you just forgot about her.
LadyMadonna - you are not alone. I agree with your rant. The worst show for the inappropriately clothed women is CSI:Miami. Of course, there’s nothing good or remotely realistic about that awful show (another show I watched with my daughter in a futile bonding attempt; why she liked it I’ll never know).
I’ve been seeing a lot of ads for a new series Chicago Fire (which is firefighters rather than police but the same principle applies). Here’s a promo picture of the cast.
Seriously? Is the Chicago Fire Department really made up of fashion models?
Whoa… Baywatch flashback.
Based purely on the commercials, none of them are believable.
Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) in Prime Suspect (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PrimeSuspect).
I loved Catherine Dent in The Shield because she was totally believable as “the hot one” - pretty, pretty enough to turn your head in the grocery store, but not ridiculous. And then the “new hot one” whose name I forget and always wanted to slap, who had to learn about wearing earrings and makeup on the job.
Also always in an actual uniform by the way.
(And in contrast CCH Pounder’s fantastically realistic older female detective, who dressed exactly like everybody I have ever met in that kind of job.)
Update it a bit, add in some filthy language (which she probably would have had if it was allowed) and you’d have something pretty similar to Deb Morgan from Dexter.
Lucy Liu on Southland as Officer Jessica Tang. Like Holly Hunter’s character as Grace Anadarko, she was a small person except they showed her get her ass kicked.
Some good nominations (CCH Pounder, Helen Mirren, Betty Thomas, and the wonderful Laurie Metcalf). I’ll throw in the 2 actress on Without a Trace who weren’t Poppy Montgomery (don’t find her very believable in anything). They were Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Roslyn Sanchez. I found them both gorgeous and believable,each in their own way.
Another nom for most unbelievable - Teresa Lisbon on “The Mentalist”. I think every other character is played very well. But she stinks up the place, sorry.
Oh yes, CSI Miami. Ugh! They should have named the show “UCD: Miami” (Unnecessary Cleavage Display).