Robert P. Laurence

San Diego Television

Agents of the DEA on Spike TV

And: "Suburban Shootout" on DVD
By Robert P. Laurence
Posted on Mar 30 2008
Last updated Mar 30 2008

As seen in a new documentary series on cable's Spike TV channel, agents of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration do their jobs very well.

They smash down the doors of drug dealers, confiscate the dope and the money, and frequently talk their suspects into ratting out bigger dealers in exchange for leniency.

Produced by Al Roker Entertainment (the prolific production company owned by the "Today" weatherman), “DEA” is a copy of Fox’s “Cops,” but with a difference. The cameras of this ride-along-with-the-law show stick to Group 14 of Detroit’s federal drug agents. (11 p.m. Wednesday, April 2, on Spike TV)

In the past year, says the narration, the men of Group 14 handled 100 cases, seized $9 million in cash and narcotics, arrested more than 200 dealers. But “DEA” doesn't address the more basic questions: Do all these labors make a significant dent in the American trade in illegal drugs? Has the arrest of a dealer ever persuaded one of his customers to quit the habit? Or does the addict simply find a new connection?

In other words, do the agents’ efforts really make a difference, except in the lives of those who get caught? Has the drug trade been significantly diminished by all their heroics? Or are they just running from place to place, sticking fingers in a perpetually leaky dike while doing little to reduce the volume of the persistent noxious flow?

Such questions are not the subject of "DEA." But then Spike TV is not given to deep thought on serious subjects. Think of it as the Testosterone Channel. Along with endless repeats of "CSI," Spike's programming leans heavily toward "Ultimate Fighter" matches, "Bare Knuckle Brawls" and lots and lots of wrestling.

So in "DEA" the emphasis is on the daring adventures of Group 14's macho dudes dressed in black and armed with big guns, knocking down doors with battering rams, snapping the cuffs on suspects, rounding up money and drugs. From the looks of things, though, the peddlers seized by the DEA are small-timers, sad, groggy consumers of their own product, life’s losers slouching in cheap, trash-strewn homes and apartments. Whoever’s getting rich on the illegal drug trade, it’s not them. They’d probably live better on welfare.

All of them are black, and they’re among the few retailers remaining in neighborhoods lined with abandoned shops and homes. But “DEA” offers no reflection on the racial component of the drug trade, nor on its pernicious impact on the black community. “All we’re doing is trying to get out of the ghetto,” says one sorry dealer.

In two days, the narration informs us at the end of the first episode, “agents have recovered more than $10,000 in crack and heroin, taken two unlicensed guns off the streets, and put three dangerous drug dealers out of commission.”

But the most basic question remains unanswered: Can the illegal drug trade ever be stopped as long as there are Americans who want to buy? Or will this nation’s “War on Drugs” continue to be as successful as the 18th Amendment to the Constitution was in winning the war on alcohol?

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If the housewives of Wisteria Lane aren’t quite desperate enough to suit you, if you still miss Tony, Paulie, Christopher and the rest of the gang at Satriale’s Pork Store, we have just what you’re looking for.

It’s “Suburban Shootout,” a deliciously black British sitcom seen in this country in 2006 on the Oxygen Channel, now released on DVD from Acorn Media Group. Think “Desperate Housewives” meets “The Sopranos.”

Droll as only the British can be, “Shootout” follows sunny, naive Joyce Hazledine (Amelia Bullmore) as she and her husband, seeking a quiet, small-town existence, settle down in seemingly bucolic Little Stempleton. But the quaint village is ruled, she soon finds out, by two rival, gun-toting gangs of local housewives. They extort money from the ladies of the local hand-crafted basket shop, wage war over the overdue-book proceeds of the public library.

Because her husband is a policeman (he figured Little Stempleton would offer easier duty than London), both gangs want Joyce to join them, and they don’t mind getting rough to convince her.

As is often the case with British comedy, you’ll have to pay attention, lest you miss some muttered-under-the-breath mischief. As the ladies of one of the gangs escort Joyce through the town, for instance, she’s warned that the proprietor of the local flower shop “uses her own excrement to fertilize the pot plants.”

Holding a pistol for the first time in her life, Joyce handles it gingerly, afraid it’ll go off at any moment. “Grip it harder,” one of the ladies urges her. “It’s not a stripper’s cock.”

You won’t hear that on “Desperate Housewives.”

About the author: Robert P. Laurence was television critic at the San Diego Union-Tribune for 21 years. He previously wrote about politics, jazz, rock 'n' roll and all manner of news. He graduated in journalism from San Francisco State University, and earned an M.A. in political science at San Jose State. He's lived in San Diego since 1971.
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