I love Elementary as a Holmes adaptation, but I have to ask about the copaganda. Not so much the overall presence/depiction of the NYPD as the generally benevolent venue for Joan and Sherlock to solve crime, but rather the occasional ep that veered off into wtf-level acts of police mouthpiecing: for example, the ep where Joan and Marcus flip the eff out after discovering that Marcus' girlfriend works in Internal Affairs. I'm curious whether stuff like that came directly out of perspectives native to the writers' room, or if it was more dictated from external sources as a cost-of-doing-business requirement. Similar to, "Microsoft will give your production money AS LONG AS you show your characters using Microsoft products to positive ends", was there a "you can depict the NYPD and call it by name AS LONG AS you include such-and-such lines of dialogue/story about how Police Are Great And Admirable And Beyond Reproach"?
(I get that you may not be able to or want to answer this question, but I caught the ep with Marcus' girlfriend yesterday and it's just so...vehement, in some really fucked up ways. I can't not ask, even if you don't answer. Thank you for keeping your askbox open!)
Great questions without an easy answer. Personally, I'm usually very cautious about outright copaganda, though I have a very close friend who joined the CHP and rose pretty high in the ranks, and I respect the hell out of him and what he did. That said, I think police are people and run the gamut from great to awful, like anyone. Worth noting, my buddy comes from a cop family, his older brother is a cop, and I know someone from a citizen group who basically said his brother was NOT a good cop at all. The opposite.
I've mostly had pretty good experiences with police, but when I was young, I was pulled over for driving while poor. I had a weapon in the car (a wooden club). Things got very tense. And I'm pretty sure that if I weren't so damn pale, that night might have gone way worse.
My friends who don't share my skin tone have, generally speaking, a much worse time with the police. I once gave a friend of mine shit for keeping his dealer tags on his car long past when he got his plates. His response: "It's another way to prove I own this car without having to reach into my glove compartment." My response: "Oh. Sorry. I'm an idiot."
So if you want to see what I think of the police... well, I wrote Bell and Gregson as good cops. I also wrote "End of Watch" and created Gina Cortes. I think, on the balance, ELEMENTARY showed good cops and bad, including shitheals like Captain Dwyer and outright villains like Frank DaSilva.
As for Shauna, in my opinion, Bell reflects the rank-and-file dislike for IA, and the fact that he blows up their relationship over it is supposed to be a huge mistake. Shauna is ultimately a good person, and Bell's prejudice costs him what could've been a wonderful relationship.
And yet... Gregson and Bell are heroes. Pretty much straight up. Sherlock and Joan work for the police, more often than not. And this is portrayed as a good thing. We had NYPD consultants on the show, and though they were mostly very helpful with making the cop stuff realistic, and I liked them a lot, they weren't super thrilled when we did stories about bad cops. I can't ever remember steering away from those stories because of their feedback, but... yeah.
On the balance, I'd say while ELEMENTARY did have our share of copaganda, we did try to create a more nuanced portrayal of police that most network procedurals.
I totally get it if you think differently.
