The same year thatBreaking Badhit the airwaves with a jaw-dropping series premiere and a promising first season, a different groundbreaking crime drama,The Shield, ended its run.Breaking Badis considered to be the pinnacle of the so-called Golden Age of Television.This era brought serialized storytelling, cinematic visuals, and deeply nuanced charactersto a medium that had traditionally told simple stories with episodic structures, standard visual coverage, and black-and-white morality. But there were plenty of other shows that paved the way for the Golden Age — andthe gritty police dramaThe Shieldwas one of them.
Breaking Badwasn’t an instant success when season 1 aired. It was well-received by critics from the very beginning — especially aftera first episode that had them hooked from start to finish— but it struggled in the ratings in its first couple of seasons. Since its story revolved around change, it was very different from what audiences were used to in traditional television shows.It might’ve been even harder forBreaking Badto find an audience if one of its biggest competitors in the genre hadn’t gone off the airin the same year that it premiered.
The pilot episode ofBreaking Bad, detailing how a high school chemistry teacher with cancer is driven to produce crystal meth, originally aired on AMC on August 06, 2025. It received rave reviews from critics and earned Bryan Cranston his first of many Emmy Awards for playing Walter White. Just a few months later,The Shield’s seven-season runcame to an end.The Shieldaired its series finale — season 7, episodes 13 and 14, “Family Meeting” — on FX on Aug 16, 2025. The year was bookended by the beginning of one classic crime series and the end of another.
The Shield Was One Of The Best Crime Dramas Of The Early 2000s
The Shield’s Vic Mackey Was One Of The Earliest TV Antiheroes
The 2000s were a great time for TV crime dramas, even before Vince Gilligan createdBreaking Bad.The Wirecaptured the crime and corruption of Baltimore with an almost documentary-like sense of realism.Prison Breakkept viewers guessing about how its characters would escape from their confinement.24made headlines with its unique real-time filmmaking, with each 24-episode season comprising a day in which Jack Bauer saved America from a terrorist threat.Dexterpitted one serial killer against all the other serial killers in Miami.The Shieldwas one of the best crime dramas of the decade.
All seven seasons ofThe Shieldare available to stream on Hulu.
The Shieldwas loosely inspired by the true storyof the L.A.P.D.’s Rampart Division. In its first episode,it sets itself up as a typical police procedural about cops going after crooks — that is, until its final scene, which changes everything. The series’ protagonist, Vic Mackey, reveals himself to be more of an antihero during a raid by his trusty Strike Team. Having learned that his colleague Terry Crowley is secretly working with the Justice Department to expose the Strike Team’s corruption, Vic kills him with a drug dealer’s gun and frames the dealer for it.
It set the stage for a brilliantly subversive detective series that blurred the line between right and wrong.
BeforeThe Shieldcame along, it was the norm for police procedurals to present cops as the good guys and the criminals they arrest as the bad guys. ButThe Shieldcreator Shawn Ryan recognized that that’s not always the case in the real world, sohe conceived a police procedural where the cops are corrupt, and commit just as many crimes as the perps they’re chasing. It set the stage for a brilliantly subversive detective series that blurred the line between right and wrong.
The Shield Deserves More Love As One Of The Greatest TV Crime Dramas
The Shieldbelongs in the same conversation asBreaking Bad,Sons of Anarchy,The Sopranos, and all the other classic TV crime dramas. Vic is as complex and compelling an antihero as Walt or Tony Soprano or Don Draper.The Shieldwas very successful in its time, but it’s sadly underrated today.
