Product Description

The Road to Justice will blow you away! Detective Vic Mackey is the leader of an elite Strike Team unit, a group of cops effective at eliminating crime but also operating under Vic's own set of rules. But his rules sometimes cross the fine line between legal and illegal. Now the precinct has a new captain who doesn't like Vic's tactics and wants to bust him off the force-even as he finds himself going to Vic for help whenever the going gets rough. There's a reason this show is on cable. It "takes the grit and reality of a 'Homicide' or 'Sopranos' to a whole nother level" (Newsday). "The Shield" also made Emmy history by earning the most nominations ever for a basic cable drama series, with Michael Chiklis winning the coveted Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. Now's your chance to experience all the action and excitement of television's most controversial show . . . from the beginning

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17212 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-01-07
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 4
• Running time: 60 minutes

Amazon.com
On March 12, 2002, The Shield burst onto the FX network like an incendiary grenade, and basic cable TV would never be the same. Creator Shawn Ryan's uncompromising police drama pushed the limits of basic-cable permissiveness, bridging the relative discretion of NYPD Blue and the HBO liberties of The Wire. Without exception, these 13 episodes justify their hype, focusing on pugnacious detective Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis), whose amoral Strike Team employs dubious tactics in the crime-ridden (and fictional) Farmington district of Los Angeles. Mackey and his maverick partners are at odds with seasoned detectives and beat cops, escalating tensions with precinct Capt. Aceveda (Benito Martinez), a Latino with flexible scruples and a political agenda.

The series invites viewers to form their own judgments regarding Mackey's volatile behavior, which includes killing an undercover cop in the electrifying pilot episode. While each episode stands alone as groundbreaking drama, the arc of the series incorporates Aceveda's campaign to end Mackey's career; the self-loathing of a homosexual rookie (Michael Jace) whose partner (Catherine Dent) is Mackey's occasional mistress; a straight-laced detective (Jay Karnes) yearning for respect; Mackey's compassionate attempt to rehabilitate a crack whore (Jamie Brown, giving the season's finest guest performance); the autism of Mackey's young son and the recklessness of his closest partner (Walton Goggins); and the vigilant stoicism of Det. Wyms (CCH Pounder), who's as sensibly upright as Mackey is corrupted.

Teeming with gang-bangers, perverts, rapists, and killers, The Shield is unabashedly adult; even liberal viewers may flinch at plots involving child pornography and serial murder. Chiklis deservedly won an Emmy for maintaining the series' delicate morality; Mackey's a hero squirming in his own ethical quicksand. This daring edginess makes The Shield unique, and generous DVD supplements explore Ryan's creative impulse. Two featurettes offer behind-the-scenes overviews, while the all-episode commentaries allow extensive insight from every member of the series' principal cast and crew. Audition tapes prove that the cast was primed for ensemble excellence, and deleted scenes further demonstrate the series' challenging ambiguity. The Shield is excellent TV for those who can grasp its complexities; all others beware. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

The Cop Drama Above All Others
Being a cop seems pretty attractive on TV. Some of the hit shows today show cops who are really clever, tough, and sexy. Their jobs are great, only interrupted by a serial killer or two. They always catch the bad guys though, and everything turns out all right. It makes a good television fantasy, but as NYPD Blue proved, a serious, hardcore police drama can work with the viewing public. The Shield builds on the success of NYPD Blue, taking an edgy style to the limit and sporting an unbelievably talented star and supporting cast. If you want a grown up drama that does not gloss over street life in LA's worst neighborhoods, the Shield's 1st season is the first place you should turn.

The Shield centers around Detective Vic Mackey, played possessively by a transformed Michael Chiklis. Mackey runs an elite Special Police Force, that specializes in high risk investigations and arrests. Based partly on the infamous LAPD Ramparts division, Mackey's unit is brutal in its efficiency and gives little heed to regulations. Mackey justifies his extreme brutality by pointing out the drop of crime in the area, once thought hopelessly crime ridden. His secret is that, through collusion with the local drugs gangs, Mackey overseas a peaceful narcotic distribution and crime operation that shies away from shootings and other violence. Mackey is good, but many are after his hide. His main foil is Captain Aceveda, a politically motivated official who considers bringing Mackey down essential to his professional future. The dynamic between the two is intense, as is Vic's discovery of skeletons in Aceveda's closet. At every turn, Aceveda stands ready to take down Vic's regime.

I am sure many think that the whole show is based on Vic. He is the most engaging character of the show, but the supporting cast is a great compliment. Standouts include "Dutch", a police detective who has a lot of inner conflicts, including a lack of confidence. His development during the season is really exciting. Shane Vendrell, Mackey's right hand man, is a treat to watch, as he begins to degenerate into reckless criminality that threatens Vic directly. The other great performances are too numerous to mention, suffice to say this is, besides the Sopranos, the best cast on TV today.

The writing of this show is top notch. There are only one or two sub par episodes, while most installments are just mind blowing. The first episode and the last 3 are the highlights, but good episodes abound. We meet a colorful group of criminal leaders, psychopaths, police relatives, [prostitutes], and corrupt cops that even surpass Vic. Visible throughout the whole inner city milieu is Vic, who almost never deviates from his one-man crusade to keep the neighborhood safe. I am so glad Chiklis won the Emmy, as he delivered a performance just as good as Kiefer Sutherland, on a much smaller stage.

Just a great show.

One of the Only Shows on TV Worth Watching!
I love this show! I first got into it after reading some of the reviews posted here on these Season One dvds, so I thought I would give it a try and I purchased this complete season. I am truly glad that I did. I was hooked from the first episode to the last and I am now watching Season 2 on FX. What makes this show far better than all the other cop shows is that the production value is more in line with HBO or a movie than a cable television show. The acting is extremely good as are the scripts and dialogue. Even though Vic and his team are labeled "dirty" cops you can't help but root for them in the end. Michael Chiklis deserved his Golden Globe award for best actor, he takes on this role as if Vic Mackey was himself in a former life. I was also glad this show won the award for best drama series on TV. If you haven't seen the show yet and are unsure if you would like it, give it a try. It's a bit brutal and graphic, but by the time you finish the final episode, "Circles," you will be speechless, praying to catch repeats of Season 2.

The best cop-drama series on TV bar none
Shawn Ryan's raw, gritty and excellent The Shield on the FX Channel gives the well-worn cop-drama genre a lethal dose of adrenaline. The Shield is not your dad's old type of cop show. Where shows like Law and Order (and its many spin-offs) shows cops at their honorable best, Ryan's series shows that there are also tragically flawed men who wear police blues.

The Shield and its main character Vic Mackey (excellently played by Michael Chiklis) shows the dark, seedy underbelly of police work in a multi-ethnic district of Los Angeles. The show uses the real-life, scandal of the LAPD's RAMPART Division and runs with it. Instead of South Central, the show primarily uses the fictional LA district of Farmington as their base of operation. It is an area rife with gang activity, violence and drug-dealing. There's also the racial divisions between the Latino and black communities always in danger of bursting into open violence. Through all this lies Vic Mackey and his RAMPART-like Strike Team. Right from the pilot episode we see that Vic and his men are the true power in Farmington as they try to hold the peace between rival gangs and drug dealers. The Strike Team's intentions are noble, but they've also become so much a part of the problem that they do not see their amoral and corrupt tactics as anything bad. They see things in their district on the verge of anarchy and decided that the only way to save it is to use any means necessary.

The Shield pushes the boundaries of basic-cable shows and teeters right over the edge. All the episodes are well-written with stories and topics seemingly ripped from the headlines. The first season runs the gamut from police corruption, child pornography, rapes, murders, gang violence and cop-killing. These stories are not doen with the aim of titillation and gratuitous violence and sex just for its sake. Ryan and company create the stories to show that all the news of downtrodden neighborhoods and Wild West-styled policing are all too real and can be ignored. The ensemble cast surrounding Michael Chiklis also needs to be commended for keeping the gritty and realistic tone of the show from ever becoming over-the-top and sensationalist. Stand-out performances by Walter Goggins as Vic's reckless, racist partner in the team and that of CCH Pounder as the mirror opposite of Vic just shows that all the accolades heaped upon this show has been well-deserved and well-earned.

I can't say enough about The Shield to convey how excellent a show it is. The show doesn't pull its punches in dealing with its characters and its controversial topics. Instead Shawn Ryan and his actors infuses the show with realistic grit and uncompromised storytelling. A new series usually grows on me overtime as the early episodes tries to find the show's personality, but the pilot and its shocking cop-killing by a major character hooked me from the start and I have been a loyal devotee of Vic and his Strike Team. The Shield and Vic Mackey have become the Dirty Harry of the new millenium.